The Black Snowstorm
by Henri0812
Summary: He was sure that his life would be normal again after SAO, but once he got the transfer papers to a new school he had never applied too, he just knew that SAO wasn't his last advanture and that Asuna and Lisbeth were probably right, trouble was seeking him (or he was seeking it according to them) [Rated M because I am nervous] [AU because of reasons that are mentioned inside]
1. Chapter 1

**Hello Henri here with a new story (let's see if I regret producing more than one story at the time xD) So this story is going to be a SAO & R+V crossover. This will be the second story in this category, but the first were Kirito is going with a semi-canon backstory. ATTENTION! This is a slight AU, which means Asuna and Kirito are NOT together (I am too lazy to write a break up/tragic death or whatever) and I believe the pairing is rather obvious with the title. Asuna is just a friend for him like Lizbeth.**

 **And there is another change in the SAO universe, but that one will be explained in the story.**

 **A big motivator for this story was "My Snow Girl" from lord of the land of fire. It's a really great story and if you like the Tsukune x Mizore pairing it is a must read.**

 **I will probably update this rather irregularly, mostly depending on my mood and how popular it gets :D**

" " **talking**

' ' **thinking**

 **Xxx Report**

 ***story start***

' _How did this happen again?_ ' Kirito was wondering while sitting in an empty bus driving to a school with the oh so totally not ominous name Yokai Academy. The fact that the bus driver, a rather shady individual with a humour that would probably perfectly align with Argos, told him that Yokai Academy was a scary place didn't really bother him, he probably wanted to mess a little bit with him, but it didn't reassure him either. He really wanted to go to school with his friends, but because of the high hospitals bills his parents had to pay he couldn't bring himself to turn down the offer from the school with a full scholarship with the only conditions being attending the school and achieving moderate grades, both not a problem for him since he had more than above average grades in his old school and in the few months after waking up he was able to go over most of the subjects he missed in the last two years. He wouldn't ace the classes, but he was confident that he would at least be above the average student as long as the subject weren't too highly complicated.

That brought him back to remembering the cruelling tasks of rebuilding his muscles, which were still lacking. He could move his body without problems, but anything to straining was pretty impossible for him, which was proven when he went against his cousin Sugu at Kendo in their Dojo, just to find out that he could easily keep up with her movements and think of counters for pretty much every single one, but when he tried to enact one his body reacted way to slow and he lost the match without even getting a single point. It was a little depressing, in one world the strongest swordsman and in the other too weak to at least provide his sister with a serious fight.

Thinking about the other world reminded him again of the fact that he would never again be able to venture into it. After the SAO incident the company Argus maintained the servers and the government had prepared a relative high amount of money for the victims to pay the hospital bills. But then another VR incident happened. Argus wanted to revive the VR games with Alfheim Online, but a high-up employee from Argus tried to use the new Amuspheres to manipulate the brains and thoughts of the users and once that came to light the VR gaming industry was as good as dead. Nobody wanted to have anything to do with it and it is still being considered if VR should be banned by law or not because it is so dangerous.

Sadly that wasn't the only consequence from this second incident. Argus had to cut its loses to not go bankrupt, which happily didn't happen, that would have caused a lot of problems for Asuna since her father was the president and nobody, especially Kirito, would wish a friend that her father lost her job, but that caused Argus to stop maintaining the servers and the government had to take up that role. The money for that was provided from the fund that was formed to pay the hospital costs, which meant that the survivors had to pay quite an amount from their own pockets. His family was able to pay it, but if he was able to save them from school costs he would definitely do it and it wasn't like he wouldn't see his friends again. It was a boarding school, but they could still talk over the phone and skype once he set up his computer and he would be able to spent time with them on his holidays.

A sudden stop from the bus brought him out of his musings and back into reality where he noticed that he wasn't the only one to be picked up by the bus. 'Well at least I won't be alone for the rest of the ride'.

The girl that entered looked around the bus while rolling her lollipop in her mouth, observing the interior of the bus until she finally noticed him. Kirito was happy that he didn't need to spent the bus ride alone and spending it with a beautiful purple haired girl, with skin so white he could almost see through, was definitely not the worst possible outcome.

And the girl sat herself in one of the front rows of the bus, which meant if he wanted to talk to her and not yell over the entire bus to do so he would have to change his sitting position. There was the possibility that she was just shy and that was the reason she sat herself not to him or she didn't want anything to do with him. Well if it was the second option and she was annoyed by him he would just have to get back to his seat. 'Would be nice if I knew someone before school starts' he thought, since he wasn't the most social guy that existed. In his old school he was acquainted with some people, but a real friend he hadn't until SAO happened and he met Klein, Asuna and the others.

Not wanting to fall back into his old loner pattern (which only meant to him that he would a few/one good friend/s) he stood up and went to her seat.

"Hey, are you also a freshman in Yokai Academy?" she just looked at him, tilting her lollipop to the other side of her mouth before answering: "Yeah, since the welcoming ceremony is only for new students the second years and older students won't be coming until after today."

"Oh really? I didn't know that, I was kind of dragged into the school." Kirito said while putting his hand behind his head, an old habit of his that he just couldn't get rid of, more so he didn't notice it most of the time.

"Huh interesting, what happened?" ' _Was he forced in here because he caused trouble in the human world? He doesn't look the type but maybe he is one of those that only act nice to make the others lower their guard'_ before the girls thoughts could turn to darker possibilities Kirito answered her question.

"I was in the hospital for the last two years and the costs were piling up and then I suddenly get a scholarship offer from Yokai Academy even though I didn't even register for it, hell I didn't even know this school existed."

"So you didn't get sent here because you caused troubles?"

"No, what gave you that idea? Is Yokai Academy a school for trouble children?"

"No, but you don't look like you would have any problems in a human school, so I thought since you were suddenly transferred here that something happened, but don't you think it's a little suspicious that you got an invention even though you didn't register for anything?"

"Yeah I was suspicious, but the offer was really good and came at the right time and what do you mean with human schoo-"

"Stop Yokai Academy, every student please get out! And be careful, Yokai is a reeaalllly scarrrrrryyy place." The bus driver interrupted Kirito, who now finally noticed that they were at their destination, he was so concentrated on the conversation that he had even ignored the fact that they had driven through a tunnel on their way here.

After getting out Kirito had already forgotten his earlier question and realized he had forgotten something else really important.

"Oh yeah I forgot to say it before but I'm Kirigaya Kazuto, but most of my friends call me Kirito so pick whatever you want." He put on a nice smile that solidified Mizores believe that her first thought about him were wrong and that he wasn't a monster that would cause problems or use her only to backstab her in the end. Somebody who did that couldn't smile in such a nice way and from what she saw so far of him she didn't believe him able to even do something like that, not to forget that she was a pretty good judge of a person's character.

"I'm Shirayuki Mizore, nice to meet you. Are you implying that we are friends? We just met each other."

"If you don't want to be my friend I understand it, but I thought it would be nice to have someone as a friend in a completely new school where you know nobody."

"No it doesn't bother, it would really be nice to have a friend in this school." ' _Since I am not the most social person I probably would have ended up alone after the first day anyway, this school turns out to be pretty nice._ ' The smile Mizore got at that thought was the first one Kirito saw from her and he lost himself a little bit in it, until Mizore brought him back to reality.

"We should probably get going now or we are going to miss the welcoming ceremony, Kirito." The last bit was said a little quieter than the rest of the sentence, as if she was testing uncertain waters, not that Kirito noticed, he was more interested the fact that there was a lake next to the bus stop, he had to give props to whoever came up with its design, it fitted perfectly into the horror/mystery feeling the entire place was practically radiating, and that the lake wasn't blue or at least some shade of green, but red. The entire lake, as far as he was able to see was red and he was pretty sure that in the entirety of Japan existed no lake as big as this one with red water.

But it didn't stop there, the land looked barren, not one green spot and the trees looked like they were stolen from some horror movie set, not to forget about the fact that he could spot a gravestone in the woods. ' _Oh man oh man where the fuck did I end up? Wouldn't be too strange if a zombie came crawling out of that grave any minute now, the surroundings were perfect for any zombie horror movie. I'm starting to believe Asuna was right when she said I am a trouble magnet._ '

"Kirito!"

"Yes, sorry what?"

"I was just saying that we are probably going to be late to the entrance ceremony if we don't start going now."

"Oh right, thanks. I was just thinking about some things and how life just seems to get the kick out of it to send me trouble."

"Huh, what do you mean?"

"Some of my friends told me that trouble seeks me out and I am starting to believe them, first … did you hear that?"

"Hear what?"

"There it is again and I think it's coming closer."

"You're right, what could it be?" Mizore was just turning her head into the direction the noise was coming from, when an out of control bike came crushing through the woods, in a direct collision course with Kirito, who was again reminded of the fact that his body still wasn't back at full 100%, as he would be able to avoid the bike easily with his reflexes if it wasn't for his still weak body.

He could see the bike nearing him, seeing every detail of it. The schoolbag in the front, the pink colour of the bike, the girl riding the bike with the same school uniform he had got, her pink hair that fluttered in the wind, her slightly panicked eyes and the most eye catching, the tire that was steadily getting closer and closer to his face.

He cursed his physical condition again, bracing for impact, just to be saved by Mizore in the last second, who pulled him away just in the nick of time. "Phew, thanks a lot Mizore, that was a bit too close for my liking. My body is still way to weak from my stay in the hospital." He said the last part with a sight.

"No problem Kirito, that's what friends are good for." He smiled at her answer and looking after the shrinking form of the girl with the bike he could hear a faint sorry from her. _'Well at least she apologized for it_.'

"Why do you think she was going so fast?" Kirito asked while they continued on their way to school, said way giving Kirito a feeling that he was walking through e cemetery, with the amount of graves and gravestones that were lying next to their way.

"Maybe she didn't want to miss the ceremony; it should have started right about now."

"Well looks like we won't be hearing the start of it then." He didn't really care, since welcoming ceremonies were mostly the same everywhere, he wouldn't miss anything important, since the homeroom teacher would probably repeat anything that would be important.

"Yup, probably."

And Kirito was right; he came into the hall only to see the turning back of a priest who had just ended the welcoming ceremony.

"Looks like we just missed it, do you know in which class you are?"

"Yeah, I'm in class 1 – 3. You?"

"I am also in 1 – 3. Wanna sit together?"

"Yeah sure, why not."

With that both of them made their way to their class, Kirito thanking his lucky stars that the exterior of the school didn't reflect on the interior, at first he had thought that the school would be pretty bad, the look fitted perfectly to the horror movie scene that he had seen until now, but the interior looked nice and new, just like any other school he knew.

Entering the class they noticed that they were one of the first to do so, most of the others were probably still scouting out the school and would here once the clock rung. Kirito took the second last seat from the window side and Mizore took the seat right next to him. They started chatting about everyday things until the class began to fill up and the homeroom teacher went in.

"Hello everyone and welcome to Yokai Academy! I am your homeroom teacher Shizuka Nekonome. I think you all already know this, but this is … a school built for the sake of monsters to attend!" she said that with a dazzling smile, happily flapping her ears and her tail that Kirito just now noticed and with probably the greatest effort he had ever to muster, he was able to supress a groan escaping his mouth. It just had to happen. Asuna, Lisbeth, Klein, Sugu and everyone else who said that he was seeking trouble or trouble was seeking him were proven right again to his dismay.

He gets a full scholarship in a boarding school and what happens? The school, with the name that sooo didn't hint at it, turns out to be a school full of monsters. It just had to happen, normal and boring just wasn't possible for him it seems.

Why he didn't believe the entire thing to be a joke? Well there were quite some reasons, but the main ones were:

Everybody beside him reacted like it was an established fact and some of them even nicked to her saying that.

She was still going on with it and explained that because of the sheer amount of humans monsters had to live in secret and that the goal of the school was to teach them how to coexist.

It just wasn't possible that something as good as full scholarship without registering for it didn't come with some strings attached.

Miss Nekonomes cat ears and her cat tail were moving so fluidly that he was either in a VR game again, which was impossible, or she was a monster and didn't follow the school rules about staying in human form, which she had just explained was mandatory, all to closely.

And it seemed the second guess was true, going by the fact that a student got his face redecorated by her claws when he pointed out that she herself wasn't following the rules.

Over a hundred possible schools he could have been attending and where does he end up? In the one and only Yokai Academy, the probably only monster Academy in the entirety of Japan.

Before he could further marvel in astonishment about his current situation a student decided that now was the perfect time to out himself as the "bad boy/school bully/thug" and Kirito had to give him that, he pulled of the picture perfectly, piercings, bad attitude, muscles, a look that switched between bored out of his mind and mean, depending on where he was looking, no he pulled of the school thug image perfectly. And if that look wasn't enough to convince somebody, then the next sentence from him would definitely do the trick.

"HEY TEACH, would it not be better for us to eat up those puny humans and in case of beautiful girls, better molest them?" and that was the moment Kirito knew, just knew that he wouldn't get along with him and probability of him fighting against him also skyrocketed.

"As I already said, individually it wouldn't be a problem, but humanity as a whole is to strong, simply by their numbers, that we monsters with our limited numbers wouldn't stand a chance, maybe with the help of the S class ones, but that would still kill a lot of us and the planet would probably be ruined by the end of the war." And Kirito had to wholeheartedly agree with her, monsters had way better quality fighters than humans, but quantity had a quality on its own and going by the fact that one monster Academy was enough for Japan or at least a big part of Japan their numbers where probably rather little compared to all the humans alive. So at least he didn't have to fear a war or something similar in the near future.

While thinking about all that the teacher had already continued with her speech, the gist of it was that they were in a separate dimension, at least that explained why he didn't have any connections with his phone, that was still a fact that made him quite unhappy about the school, that there were no humans on the campus, including students and teachers and the fact that if a human should wander in that he would be killed or something, yeah he managed to get the probably only airheaded teacher on the entire campus, but on the plus side she seemed rather nice and he was still contemplating if he should try putting tuna on her desk, only to see her reaction to it. Going by what he saw from her since class started she would probably delighted and forget about the class until she was finished with the tuna.

He wasn't too worried at the moment though, he may be in a school full of monsters, but they all had to be in their human forms, so as long as he didn't get into a fight nobody should notice him and beside the monster part they behaved like every other human he knew. If the teacher hadn't told him about it he would have probably only found out about it if he saw a monster without its human guise, so blending in shouldn't be too hard. And there was still the fact that he got a full scholarship and come on how many people can say for themselves that they lived and learned with monsters and he wasn't one who would back down frightened just because they were a bit stronger than him.

Another reason why he still wasn't running away with his destination being the bus stop was that that would have been way to easy and if he learned one thing in his two years in Aincrad, then that easy way out always had a problem or ten that would make that way a lot more costly instead of staying. Besides, he could try the school out and leave it after a few days, if worst came to worst he would have to rely on his new friend to save him, not that he planned on letting that happen, but now he was really glad that he talked to her and that they became fast friends.

And before he was able to further explain his decision to stay to himself the class was interrupted by a student that came into the class.

The girl entering looked slightly embarrassed and introduced herself to the class: "Sorry that I am late, but I got a little lost in the school building and it took some time to find this classroom." The class erupted with noise, at least the male part and cheers about like "Hot! She is too hot!" or "I am so happy to be in this class" could be heard. Some of the girls were also cheering for her and Kirito could understand them at least a bit. She might not have made the best first impression on him, almost driving over someone had such an effect, but she looked really cute going by the easy-going smile she was now sporting, she probably also had a pretty nice personality.

The Rosario on her bosom only complemented her looks, but Kirito had a feeling that that wasn't only an accessory for her looks, it had a kind of ominous feeling about it, it was like it radiated power that was barely restricted. ' _It's probably sealing her power, which means she is probably a pretty powerful monster. Wouldn't have thought so going by her looks, who knows, maybe I'm overthinking things._ '

She went over to the last free seat, which was coincidently behind him and the very moment she sat down he could feel a lot of killing intend coming in his direction. ' _Well so much for blending in and not standing out._ '

When he looked around the class he noticed that not everyone was giving him a glare, Saizo, as the brute had introduced himself before, was looking directly at Moka and the look he was giving her was enough for him to know Saizo was probably forced into the Academy, like some other Mizore had told him about and the feeling that he would fight him in one way or another just grew further.

Mizore was really interested in her new friend. Not romantically, at least not yet, she didn't rule out the possibility, the main reason she came to the Academy was to find herself a partner, but the entire time they were next to each other he didn't give of the slightest amount of yoki, which wasn't too suspicious since there were a lot of monster with a weak yoki signature and she wasn't the most sensitive to begin with, but coupled with the fact that he didn't know about Yokai Academy at all and the shock on his face, even if it lasted just a second and was then replaced by a look of someone who accepts his fate and wants to groan about it made for enough material to suspect that something was wrong.

She hadn't figured out what, but that would surely change and beside even if it wasn't for that little mystery she would still be interested in him. He was fun to talk with, seemed genially nice and his looks also weren't too bad. And she was a really good judge of people, came with the stalker business, so she knew that he being with him would definitely turn out to be interesting.

When class ended Kirito turned his attention to Mizore to ask her if she wanted to explore the school with him, only to find her seat empty. ' _I think she could rival Argo with that, I didn't even notice her move._ ' Well then he was going to explore the school alone a bit, if he was lucky then the roof was open and if this school was like the others he was and heard about then that would be the perfect place to have a place for himself and an even better place to nap a little bit. Another of the habits he had picked up in SAO and he was sure as hell keeping that one, he just enjoyed them too much to stop.

After confirming that he indeed could get up on the roof he went to check out the student dorms, as far as he had seen and heard there were two dorms, one for the boys and one for the girls, both looking like they came from a horror movie, but the interior was probably as modern as in the school building.

And he was right, he got a nice clean room with everything he needed, beside a plug for an internet connection, which meant he could not only not use his phone but skype wasn't an option either. Great, that meant he would have to be happy with the landline pay phones he saw in one of the halls in the school.

Looking out of the window he was still impressed how different the interior was from the exterior, he wasn't a fan of the horror movie setting, but considering it was a monster school it could have probably been a lot worse. The interior was modern, the students and teachers acted mostly like normal humans would, as far as he had seen, and the scholarship was still a big plus point on his list, not to forget that he had already made a friend and he definitely wasn't the type to just let a friend behind, even if said friend was a monster.

He was already turning away from the window when he saw Saizo and to his surprise next to him Moka. He hadn't pecked her to be friends with such people what who was he to judge. On the other side he couldn't see enough with the distance, so maybe he was just trying to get her to be his girlfriend, it would perfectly fit his stereotype if he did something like that. Well since both are monster it probably wouldn't escalate and Saizo probably wouldn't do anything to extreme in fear of the teacher on the campus since it's only been the first day and teachers tended to be stricter on the first few days. So relatively relaxed, he would probably ask her tomorrow what happened, he laid down in his bed and decided that a nap now would probably great.

While he saw Saizo through the window he failed to see the violet spots on the right bottom of the window. Mizore was already indulging in her hobby and had stalked him the entire way to the roof, one of her favourite spots, that she already knew and by the look he had he probably shared that feeling, and then further observed him going to his room where he, after looking through the window and almost discovering her he went to bed and she had to say, his sleeping face was definitely cute. If he should turn into her partner in marriage he would definitely have a plus point in looks, but it was still way too early to come to a conclusion, she still didn't really know him and for her people took quite some amount of time until you could be considered a friend or even longer for a marriage prospect, so she pretty much rushed it when she said she would be his friend, but she doubted that she would regret that move.

The nap developed into a pretty long sleep, he wouldn't wake up until his alarm clock activated and his second day at Yokai Academy would start.

 **AN:**

 **So tell me what you think about it. I mostly wrote this because I just lave Kirito as a Character and this is the first crossover going in this direction for the R+V and SAO category. The pairing should be rather obvious, going by this chapter, the title and the fact that I told you that "My Snow Girl" was a big inspiration for this story (If you haven't read it yet you should do it now, you are really missing out on a great work!)**

 **If I get enough positive feedback the next chapter might show up in a few days' time, but I am probably going to concentrate more on my first story (The Black Knight - SAO x CG crossover)**

 **And for the fact that he isn't too shocked or terrified about the monsters: He isn't Tsukune and was hardened in the hell that was SAO and I think I also explained some of the reasons in the story.**

 **As always: I was too lazy to proofread and the disclaimer:**

 **I own neither Sword Art Online nor Rosario + Vampire**

 **I hope you all liked it (If yes then please favourite, follow and review (I am living from reviews, even if it is just a simple "good job" it motivates me to write more and faster ;D))**


	2. Chapter 2

**And here we have chapter two of my new story :D**

" **xxx" talking**

' _ **xxx**_ **' thinking**

 _ **Xxx**_ **Report**

 ***story start***

Kirito was sitting in his class, arriving with Mizore, who had waited for him before the dorm. Behind a tree. Just observing him for a while and once she revealed herself he almost had a heart attack and with reflexed forged by two years of almost constant fighting reached behind him to pull out his trusted sword and to face the enemy. Until he realized a few things. First, he wasn't in SAO any longer, which meant there was no sword on his back. Second, it was not an enemy but his friend Mizore. Third, either his instincts were starting to dull or Mizore was an exceptionally talented person in the high art on hiding her presence and following someone.

The way to the school was fun, they talked about this and that, nothing to important until they reached the class and seated themselves. Nekonome came with the ringing of the clock into the classroom and Kirito started to feel strange. Something was wrong and he was missing it. Until the teacher came to the name Akashiya Moka with her role call and now he finally noticed that she was missing and Saizo had a way to big grin on his face. The entire thing rubbed Kirito in the wrong way. He would have to look into things but he already had a vague idea what had happened and internally he sighed, ' _Day 2 and I am probably going to fight Saizo … Yeah Lisbeth and Asuna were right, trouble is seeking me.'_

And Kiritos vague idea was confirmed when Moka showed up for the third lesson, covered in bandages and some really nasty looking bruises on her arms. She told the class that she fell down the stairs, but Kirito knew that those injuries didn't come from falling and were definitely inflicted by a human, no scratch that, here it would be a monster.

Vowing to himself that he would talk to her about it after school, he let himself drift through the class, he had feared he wouldn't be able understand the things that were taught, but most subjects were way too easy for him so a little nap in the class wouldn't harm his grades in any way, even more so since it was only the second day and the first week mostly never covered anything too important.

Mizore too was looking at Moka and came to a very similar conclusion as Kirito and she really pitied the pink haired girl. Saizo could really be described as the enemy to all women and to be in his clutches must be awful if you looked like that just after a day.

She glanced to Kirito who had just moments ago also stared at Moka or better said her injuries and then at Saizo and noticed that he had started a nap. Mizore really liked his sleeping form, it was just way too cute and since she had certain talents she knew how to make it last. She brought out her sketching block and started to draw the scene. She didn't want to boast, but she was a pretty good artist and her drawing was turning out really well. Just as she finished drawing the last line with her pencil and gave the drawing an approving look the bell rang and Kirito woke up.

"Hey did you draw something?" he asked her, seeing her hurriedly cramming her sketching block into her schoolbag.

"Yeah, but it's nothing too impressive." She had a slight red tint on her cheeks and was already rapidly thinking of a way to change to subject, but to no avail Kirito continued: "Oh I am sure it's looking great, can I have a look at it?"

"Fine, but as I said it's nothing special." Even though she said that her cheeks got just a shade of red darker and she was really nervous about showing him the drawing, not because she thought it turned out bad, but some people could react badly to being drawn or photographed without consent.

Taking the picture Kirito turned silent and studied it. Mizore feared the worst, that she had driven away a nice friend she had just made, but than his voice broke her out of those dark thoughts.

"What are you saying nothing special? This picture is amazing. Though do I really look that girly when I sleep?" the last part came out rather quiet and now that she looked at it again she noticed it too, he not only looked way too cute when he slept, but he could also be mistaken for a girl with his effeminate looks. When he was awake it wasn't as clearly see able, but when he slept and you just looked with fleeting attention at him you could really confuse him for a girl. ' _How he would look in a skirt?_ '

Kirito didn't know why but he suddenly felt a cold shiver run down his spine and a part of his brain that controlled his manliness suddenly felt very intimidated.

Shrugging the strange feeling of he noticed that Moka had already left the class and if he wanted to talk to her and help her he would have to hurry to catch up with her. Speed walking, running would probably cause some problems and cost time, he left the classroom and the school building and found Moka sitting next to a vending machine, sad look on her face as she played with a can of Tomato juice in her hand.

Mizore was stalking behind Kirito who had rather hurriedly left the class and wasn't not too sure how she should feel about what she was seeing. On one side she was happy that Kirito wasn't obvious to the girl's problems and was probably trying to help her, but on the other side she felt a pang of jealousy for the girl. Why was that? They were just friends, good she saw him as a possible boyfriend/marriage candidate, but at the moment they were friends and he was just trying to help her, she wasn't so selfish as to demand from him to only be concerned about her and she herself had been thinking about how to help the girl.

While Mizore contemplated about her feelings Moka and Kirito had started talking, not about her injuries or Saizo, just about mundane things so Moka could calm herself and later tell him what had exactly happened to cause her such injuries.

"So how did you really get those injuries?" and Moka mood that had steadily improved disappeared again and she looked around herself, only now noticing how empty everything was, there were no other students beside her and the nice boy Kirito and just as she was starting to tell him what had really happened she caught sight of the approaching Saizo.

He still hadn't seen her so she was trying to flee into the woods were it would be rather easy to hide from him. "I don't want to tell you that here, if somebody heard us you could get into a lot of trouble and you really seem nice so I don't want that." She said that while getting up from her seat place and rather hurriedly walking into the forest.

At first Kirito wondered why, but then he too caught sight of Saizo and decided that it would probably be better to follow her and just a moment ago it had looked like she wanted to tell him what happened so if they were alone again she would probably tell him and he could start figuring out a way to help her.

When he finally caught up with her the sight of the Academy was already lost and instead he could already see some spots of red water in the distance, which meant that they were rather close to the bus stop.

"I don't think that he followed us so you should be safe for the moment. So I'm guessing Saizo was the one who hurt you?" Her eyes dropped and she only nodded. It was just one day but what that bastard had done would probably be in her nightmares for the next few weeks. He hadn't raped her but that was only a matter of time and the injuries he caused her, while they were not lasting, did hurt her a lot.

"Don't worry …" he told her reassuringly "… I am going to make sure that that won't happen again and I am also pretty sure that my friend Mizore will help you too, you two would probably make great friends."

"Friends? You think we would be friends?"

"Sure why not? Mizore might be a little bit strange, but she is a great person and I don't see any reason why you two couldn't be friends. If you want too then we can also be friends." When he looked at her he was pretty sure that he messed up big time, because she was crying.

"Ahhh you don't need to if you don't want to be my friend, nobody's forcing you into anythi-"

"No, no, don't worry, I would be really happy if we could be friends, as long as you are okay with someone like me." 'My first friend and maybe I even get another one'. The day had really started badly, but now she would definitely rank it in one of her most favourite days, at least the afternoon.

"That's good and you look like a nice person, I wouldn't know why I wouldn't be okay if you, it should be rather me to ask you if you were ok with me." He said while scrapping the back of his head.

"That's great, you know I never had friends before because I told them I was a vampire and the humans treated me really badly after that." And as she finished that sentence she immediately regretted it. She had told him her monster form, not only did she break the school rules, but she probably also drove away her first friend.

"So you are a vampire huh. Wouldn't have thought of that you really don't look the type. And about the humans, there are good and bad ones and most of them are ignorant so it wasn't like nobody liked you or hated you, you just didn't meet the right people." The smile he was giving her calmed her uprising despair and with surprise evident in her voice she asked him: "It doesn't bother you in the slightest that I am a vampire? Not at all?"

"You didn't kill me yet and you are definitely a nice girl, what does it matter if you are a vampire."

Moka was speechless. Simply speechless. Not one friend in the human world and once she transferred to Yokai Academy it started even worse than in the human schools, but now she had a friend who knew what she was and still wanted to be her friend.

"Thank you."

"But you know that we shouldn't tell the others what monster you are, it could cause you problems with the staff."

"Tehee, it kinda slipped out …"

"Hey there Moka! What are you doing here with this …" he gave Kirito an arrogant look "… weakling, when you have someone as strong and great as me? And you, Kiri-whatever your name was, don't you ever dare come near MY Moka again or I am going to break every single bone that's in that pathetically weak looking body of yours." The longer he talked the smaller Moka seemed to get and unconsciously inched closer to Kirito in order to hide behind him, fearing that now he wouldn't be her friend anymore with the threat of Saizo, only to be surprised by his answer.

"Wow, I'm impressed." At Saizos confused look Kirito continued, "no really, you are great, the looks, your mannerisms, how you talk, how you treat others, you are the best stereotype asshole and school thug I have ever seen in my life and I have to say I already met quite some assholes."

Saizo was quite for thirty seconds, then his brain had finally processed what he had said and with rage boiling in him said: "I think I just misheard, but did you weakling just insult me?"

Moka was definitely not ready for his answer. She expected him to run, to apologize, a small part of her had hoped that he would protect her, but she definitely didn't think he would go out and taunt him. ' _He has to be a really strong monster if he can do something like that with that much confidence_.'

"Nooooo, what gave you that idea? And to answer your question from before, hell will freeze over before I abandon one of my friends!" The killing intent rolling of from him let Saizo hesitate slightly, the guy infront of him didn't look like much, but he had a lot of confidence and the amount of killing intent that just started rolling of from him was definitely nothing to laugh at.

But the hesitance was soon replaced by rage, he was the rogue monster orc Saizo Komiya, how was it possible that he would falter, even if it was just for a split-second in front of such a weak looking kid?

Kirito knew that he was playing a dangerous game, but since he was only human he needed an advantage over Saizo, who just started transforming into a monster, _'looks kind of like an orc, how fitting, all muscle no brain, he couldn't have been a more fitting monster.'_ and he knew that an enraged opponent was stronger but also a lot easier to read and since Kirito was at a probably abyssal disadvantage at the strength department already it didn't really matter if he gained a little bit of rage inducted strength, so he tried to make his attacks as predictably as possible and nothing is easier to read as an enraged, untrained opponent.

Alone from the movement of Saizos shoulders and the position of his feet Kirito knew that a straight punch for his left shoulder was coming and had little trouble evading it by twisting his body slightly and throwing his own punch with his right into Saizos stomach, enhancing it with his spinning movement and packing his entire body behind the punch.

Normally that would have winded an opponent, but this opponent was a monster based of brute strength and Kirito was still weak from his time in the hospital, but after hitting the stone wall that was supposed to be Saizos stomach he kind of doubted that he would have achieved more if he was back at his old strength.

From the corner of his eye he saw Saizos other arm coming and jumped back out of his reach or that would have been the plan if he wasn't so slow. He really needed to get his body in top condition again, if he had been then Saizo would have definitely not reached him with his arm and left an ugly looking gash on his chest.

"KIRITO!" Moka screamed when she saw the blood, at first she believed he had a chance, when he evaded Saizos first punch and countered it he looked like someone who was doing it his entire live. No hesitance, no unnecessary movement, just a precise and calculated evasion and a follow up attack. But then he was to slow to completely evade Saizos second attack and now blood was flowing from a cut on his chest.

While never leaving Saizo, who stood just four meters away from him, out of his view Kirito whispered to Moka: "It's not looking too great for us, any great ideas?" At Mokas headshake he continued: "And if you drank my blood? You said you are a vampire, would that unlock your powers?" Kirito grasped at straws, he had expected that his opponent was faster and stronger than him, but the gap was so huge that he wouldn't be able to compensate with skills alone, even though he could read Saizo like a book, he was simply to slow to evade and counter everything and he was also pretty sure that Saizo was the one with the better stamina so a drawn out fight would just bring him bigger problems.

"Sorry, but it doesn't work that way, for my powers to unlock I would have to somehow detach the Rosario from me."

"And you probably need a key for doing that right?" ' _If not she would have probably removed it a long time ago._ ' At least he was reassured that his assumption about her being a strong monster were right.

"Not a key, my mother said that only a person who was good of heart and who would not betray and protect me could remove it."

"Well, I could try to remove it." Kirito had turned his head to her against his better judgment and as soon as those words left his mouth he knew he had made a mistake. Saizo was at first in a slight stupor, the second attack was just a reflex, because his first punch didn't hit and instead he was countered like a novice. He had expected to be hit by a wave of pain then and there, but he almost didn't feel the punch, which greatly confused him, since he had expected him to pack quite a punch with all the boasting and confidence he had before.

"WEAKLING!" screaming that while launching himself at the black haired boy in the moment he took his eyes of him he launched his right fist into his direction.

"Shit!" cursing Kirito shoved Moka to the side and braced for the impact that would undoubtedly shatter some of his bones and was surprised to see Saizos fist stopping inches before his body, encased in ice.

Looking to his right he saw Mizore, her purple hair turned to ice, her arms turned into ice claws and a slightly worried look on her face. "Beautiful" Kirito whispered so silently that only Moka, who was near him, could hear it.

"Kirito are you alright?"

"Yeah just peachy, thanks for the save, that was rather close."

Before they could continue Saizo had broken out of the ice that had encased his arm and roared: "HOW DARE ANOTHER ONE STAND BETWEEN ME AND MY GIRL!" Saizo was now definitely pissed beyond reason and he was about to attack again when Kirito noticed he was holding something in his hand.

When he had shoved Moka out of the way of Saizos punch, his fingers had grasped the Rosario and yanked it off and since he expected to be on the receiving end of a bone shattering punch he had ignored it.

Moka too looked dumbly at the Rosario in her new friends hands. ' _It got off._ 'That was as far as she got when she felt a presence stir inside of her, gently pushing her own consciousness to the edges of her perception and taking over the command of her body, releasing the massive amount of yoki that was being suppressed by the Rosario and stunning the other three into silence.

It was not only the amount of Yoki that she emitted into the area, but her body as well that changed. Her pink hair turned snow white, her irises changed to a red with dark red, almost black vertical slits and poking out of her mouth were two fangs. By every definition she now looked like a real vampire and by the amount of Yoki and killing intent she was giving of nobody would be able to even think that now standing in front of him was a super monster.

"This is … This is a super Vampire?! Just like the legends say, the amount of Yoki is unreal –" Saizo was definitely panicking now, the boy had made him nervous, but turned out to be weak, but Moka, no she no longer was Moka, was definitely the real deal and he could have all the rage inducted strength he wanted, in front of a real vampire it meant nothing.

But before he could even contemplate that he was met with the vampire's right kick, breaking in his nose, jaw and destroying several of his teeth, sending him flying through several trees and gravestones, only stopping when he went over the cliff and gravity proved to be stronger than the speed inducted through the kick.

And that was what saved Saizos hide, he was half dead, but because of his strong body he survived the fall and Moka couldn't get into the water herself to finish the job.

"Know your place imbecile, did you really think a low class monster like you could even hope to touch me?! Be happy that I didn't kill you and never again wander under my sight!" Some of her anger vent she turned to Kirito, who had fallen to his knees, but to her surprise it wasn't in fear but more due to the fact that the cut on his chest was deeper than he would have liked.

"Huh, what a brave human …" at that inner Moka reeled ' _Oh my god, he was human and defended me with his frail body?!'_ she now definitely believed his words when he had said that there were also some good humans, " … to defend the other weak me against a monster is no small feat."

"As far as defending goes I would say I did a rather bad job." He was trying to stand up and after testing if his knees would hold his weight he steadied himself and continued, "If it wasn't for you and Mizore I would have had a really big problem."

"Don't underestimate your role, even if it bought only a little bit of time, it was still enough for your ally to arrive and don't forget, you awakened me from my deep slumber." While saying that Moka observed Mizore doing first aid on Kirito, better said she froze to cut so that it could be stitched in the infirmary. Nodding to Mizore she grabbed the Rosario in Kiritos hand and while reattaching it to her chain said: "I am still tired, watch over the other me for me, while I am not here." ' _An interesting guy, he didn't show the slightest bit of fear when he faced me and even though I didn't direct my killing intent at him, any normal human would have been close to unconsciousness by the amount I was giving of, really, reallllly interesting.'_

Once the Rosario was attached again the sudden loss of strength combined with the switch of personas operating the body Moka fell forward, directly into Mizore and Kiritos arms, who both looked at her with concern in their eyes.

"Are you ok Moka?" Kirito was the first to break the silence.

"Yes, I'm fine, thanks to your and Mizores help."

"No problem, I couldn't let that brute hurt such a nice girl as you and I am sure Mizore was also thinking something along these lines right?" he looked at Mizore and got his answer, but by the look on her face he knew he wouldn't like some parts of it.

"Yeah, by the way Kirito, what gave you the grand idea to attack a monster when you are a human? And by what I saw you aren't even in top condition." She narrowed her eyes at him, she had noticed it, he had anticipated his enemy and was moving in ways to evade his enemy, but his body wasn't able to keep up.

"Hahaha, funny thing, I didn't really plan on fighting him, it just kind of happened?" Oh he so didn't like the direction this talk was taking; well they had already reached the school compound again, so once they reached the infirmary he could flee from it.

"But didn't you taunt him really bad? I was totally sure that you were a strong monster when you did that and that you would mop the floor with Saizo." Moka was feeling good again and was helping Mizore supporting Kirito and thanks to the innocence her voice held in that sentence he just couldn't bring himself to be angry at his new pink haired friend.

"That was part of a plan…" "Really?" Mizore said, doubt evident in her eyes, " Yes, not my fault that my body is still recovering from hospital stay, if I was in normal condition I could have easily evaded that second punch."

"And what would you have done after evading that punch?" She definitely hit the weak point in his argument, because they both knew that sooner or later one punch would have hit him and he was too weak to seriously hurt Saizo, not to mention his lesser stamina.

But he was saved by the appearance of the infirmary room. "Look we are here, time to get me stitched up again." He said while opening the door, which caused the doctor to hear his last sentence.

"You shouldn't talk about it so lightly …" the doctor said while looking at the wound " … if it was just a bit deeper your rips would have probably broken and punctured your lung, you would have either bled out or suffocated."

In that moment Kirito was really happy that at least his reflexes were still top notch, because if it weren't so that cut would have definitely been way more lethal. Another thing he was glad about was that the doctor didn't need to see his monster form, that could have caused him quite some troubles.

"Well since it didn't go just a bit deeper it will heal normally and with a few stitches, some of my ointments and a bandage you will be as good as new in about five days to a week.

"Thanks doc, till five days when you pull the stiches."

"And don't show up any sooner again, would be a pity if I had to fix your body up again when my first work isn't even healed."

"I will try my best." Even though he said that he had a feeling that he would probably end up being a regular here and he was starting to really miss some things from SAO, what would he give for a heal crystal or his beloved and trusted swords.

"And we will make sure that he keeps his word." Mizore and Moka reassured the doctor, standing beside Kirito and after saying their goodbyes accompanying him back to his room.

"Kirito you should rest a bit, then your wounds will probably heal sooner." Moka told him while they positioned him at his bed, only to touch her head with her free hand and closing her eyes.

Kirito, after the ointments started taking effect and reducing the pain to a slight throbbing looked at her with concern, noting that in the corner of his eyes Mizore was also looking at their new friend and asked: "Are you alright Moka? You don't look too good."

Moka, called out about it, tried her best to put on a reassuring smile and told him that she was fine and that he should be more concerned about himself. But right after that she went to the door and excused herself, saying that she still had something to do.

Now being alone again with Kirito Mizores adrenaline started to recede and one of her worse fears started to take root again.

She had once known another human boy and she was willing to say that he was her first love. In her village love and family was one if not the most important aspect of live. She had truly loved the boy back then, it was a foolish and rushed decision, but Mizore was young and thought not about possible consequences, so when the boy told her too that he liked her she had led him to a field of snow flowers near her village, luckily not showing him the village and had told him what she was.

She had expected that his love for her would prevail and he would accept her, but it was not to be. He looked at her with fear in his eyes and ran away.

She just sat there, trying to comprehend what had happened until her mother found her and brought her back home to console her. But that event had left her with a fear of disclosing her identity to others, it wasn't really bad with monsters and she had convinced herself that her reluctance to tell others what she was, was only her being cautious, but now standing next to her friend, if she was still allowed to call him that, she realized that it was the simple fear of being left alone again once she opened up and allowed other to know about herself. That fear was naturally a lot bigger with Kirito, since he was also a human, like the boy who had first shattered her young and innocent feelings. Monsters were at least ok for her, as long as it was just her form, but a human was on a completely different scale for her and she was already waiting for Kiritos dooming words, telling her to leave and never come back, with either fear or rage in his eyes.

When she finally assembled all of her willpower she looked at him again and found neither in his eyes. Instead they were filled with concern and confusion, but manly with concern about her.

Kirito was slightly confused and definitely worried about his friend. She had gotten quiet, way more quiet than usual and the way her body seemed to get smaller and smaller and all her muscles tensed he knew something was wrong, but what? She wasn't injured in the fight, of that he was pretty sure and afterwards nothing really happened that could have hurt her. So if it wasn't physical maybe it was psychological? But what could it have been? Did he do something that could have hurt her feelings? Not that he remembered, but he also couldn't say that he understood woman to good, at least if he believed what Asuna, Lisbeth and Silica had told him about that matter.

Deciding a direct approach was as good as any other and would prevent him from getting a headache he was just about to let the question loose if she was okay, only for her to finally raise her head and starring into his eyes, trying to find something he wasn't too sure about what it was.

"Mizore are you alright?" that did snap her out of the eye gazing she just did but when she answered him her voice was barely over a whisper and was slightly cracking.

"No every...everything's alright. It's just …"she trailed of a bit only continue with probably all the determination she could muster, reading herself for the second time to lose a friend and a possible love because of what she was, "It's just are you still ok with me?"

"What's kind of question is that? Why would I not be ok with you?" if before he had a little bit confusion in his gaze, it was now the dominating emotion.

Gaining a bit of hope, even if it was only a silver lining on the horizon Mizore continued with a slightly stronger voice: "You saw my true form, aren't you afraid of me? Won't you leave me, abandon me and curse me for deceiving you?" she was only seconds away from crying when one word stopped her. Just one word from him, one that she had little hope would come but it still happened, just as with Moka before her thoughts came to an abrupt stop with just one simple word, consisting of only two letters.

"No." it wasn't loud, it wasn't quite, it was said with earnest and in an even voice and he continued with it, "Why should I be afraid of you? You are my friend and defended me against someone who could have killed me in a situation that was also dangerous for you and …" his face turned to a rather red shade and now it was his voice that turned rather quite so that she almost didn't hear the last words he said, "… and you looked really beautiful."

Mizores face lit up like a Christmas tree and stuttering she excused herself from his room, telling him she was looking forward on seeing him again tomorrow and trying rather desperately to regain control over her emotions before she vanished into the shadows and ran to her room, recollecting about the things that had happened, but she was already sure of two things, she had gained a nice new friend and Kirito made a very huge jump in the rankings of possible boyfriend/partner in marriage, not that he had anyone to overtake but now she was seriously considering him, before it was just that she wouldn't have minded him, but now after showing that he accepted her and countering her mostly unconscious fear of being rejected feelings were starting to bloom inside of her. She still wasn't sure what feelings and everything was moving quite a lot faster than she would have liked, since her race normally took their time to accurately get to know possible candidates for marriage/boyfriend, but thanks to Kirito and his actions and mostly her own feelings and emotions were developing way faster than she would have ever thought possible, but she reassured herself with the fact that she still had more than a year to get to know him accurately and if two days were enough to cause this, who knew how she would feel about him after a year.

Thinking about this and other things that were going in the same direction time went by and before she knew it, it was dark outside and she let herself sink into a nice deep slumber.

 **AN:**

 **Well, that chapter got out pretty fast, is it just me or are my characters getting OOC (more so than the influence through Kirito should cause)?**

 **And everybody who is waiting for the next "The Dark Knight" Chapter, it will take some time, I am still deciding about some things that will happen and writers block hit me pretty hard with that one story, but fear not it will definitely be continued and finished ;D**

 **SO as always:**

 **Tell me what you thought about this chapter through a review, even if it's just a 'good work' or 'nice chapter' it really helps to motivate me ;-)**

 **I will proofread this at a later date, so there probably are some mistakes, if you find them I have nothing against you if you would point them out in a review :D**

 **Disclaimer: I own neither Sword Art Online nor Rosario + Vampire, if I did both would have AU stories with a different pairing (I like the canon pairing but I just love Mizore and Sinon too much)**


	3. Chapter 3

**And here we have chapter 3 of my new story :D**

"xxx" **talking**

' _xxx_ ' **thinking**

 _Xxx_ **Report**

 ***story start***

Yawning Kirito went out of the boy's dorm and was greeted by a sight that removed his doziness rather quickly. In front of the dorm stood Moka, leaning to the door while looking extremely pale, her eyes closed and one hand on the bridge of her nose looking exactly like yesterday when she had helped to put him into his bed, after their return from the infirmary.

But the state of her health wasn't the only reason why he got concerned about his friend. It was the main part of the worries that he had as soon as he saw her like that, but the other reason that caused his concern was the whispering going on around her.

"Wow, who's that hotty?", "Be quite, Saizo claimed her, if he hears you your parents can probably come and collect you in a body bag.", "Shit, that Saizo guy?", "Damn and I thought she looked nice, why would she want to go out with him?", "Maybe she likes the type that rough with her?", "You wouldn't believe it from her looks, but going out with Saizo, she's probably as bad as him." And it continued and got rather worse than better.

Kirito was shocked, firstly because it wasn't even two full days since Saizo 'claimed', he thought about the word with distaste, Moka and the rumours had already spread through most of the first years as far as he could see and it was only a matter of time until the entire school knew about it and going by the reactions so far they would probably harass her for it, instead of helping her.

Shoving his angry and dark thoughts away, if they weren't going to help her and only badmouth her they could just leave him alone, he set a pleasant smile on his face and continued his way to Moka.

"Hey Moka. Are you ok? You don't look to good." He still wore his pleasant smile but Moka could clearly hear the concern out of his voice.

"Yeah, don't worry, I'm just a bit anaemic since my blood conserves ran dry two days ago and it will take a few days until new ones arrive, but I should be able to endure it with a lot of tomato juice. So you really don't need to worry about me." She tried to reassure him with a smile, but the strain in it was clearly visible and that did definitely nothing to calm Kirito about his friend's problems.

"Are you sure that that's ok, you really don't look too good right now."

"That's just some cosmetic rest damage from Saizo's rough treatment, it will be gone by tomorrow, don't worry, how is your own wound by the way? I'm really sorry that you had to endure that for me." Kirito still didn't believe her but what should he do, yeah sure he could offer his blood, but he had no idea how much she needed and if she would even take it from him.

"Don't worry, whatever the doc gave me is working great, it doesn't hurt anymore and as long as I don't move too fast everything I notice from it is a slight itch. And don't feel sorry, you would have done the same for me and if there is one thing that you can take for granted then it is the fact I would never willing watch when my friends are being threatened or hurt." Moka's face got redder and redder at the last part and she looked embarrassed to the side, which in turn caused Kirito's concerns to skyrocket again, "Are you sure everything's alright?", if that kept going on he would definitely give her some of his blood, if she wanted or not.

Mizore was watching the entire thing and found another aspect about her friend's personality; he was pretty dense, even she had gotten a slight red tint on her cheeks when he proclaimed to Moka that he would never let his friends be treated badly and he had not the slightest idea what caused Moka to turn red and to turn her look away from him. Yeah, he was dense, thinking back about yesterday, about the compliment he had made her and how she and in affect he reacted to it she was at least happy to note that he wasn't completely dense, just a lot.

' _Well, time to save Moka from more embarrassment, if any more bloods gets into her head, combined with her anaemia she would probably faint.'_ She was totally not doing it because she was jealous of Moka's time alone with him, not at all.

Appearing behind Kirito she greeted the two, inevitable breaking the uncomfortable silence that had descended upon the two and giving Kirito almost an heart attack again; when he didn't concentrate on his surroundings he just wasn't able to sense her and she wasn't ashamed to say that scaring him a little was quite funny and it was crawling up on her hobby list and had already claimed rang three, just behind stalking and drawing.

"Mizore, could you please stop sneaking up on me?" Kirito asked her after taking a few seconds to reduce his heart rate back to normal.

"Why, I don't know what you mean and besides, why give up on something that I am so good at?"

"There, right there, you admitted it." He pointed his finger accusingly at her.

"Admit what? That I am good at doing something? I am sure you also have some things that you are good at."

"Yes, no,wait, urrgh, fine I give up, but I am going to send the next hospital bill to you when they have to restart my heart." He told her, a teasing smile on his face again.

"Don't worry, it seems the doc likes you, I am sure he will restart it for free." She smirked and then added: "On a more serious note, how are you feeling?" She knew the answer from listening in before, but it just didn't feel right not to ask him about it and she wanted him to reassure her too with the answer.

"As I told Moka before, everything's healing nicely and beside an itch nothing is wrong and in a few days I can fight against the next monster that's threatening one of you." He told them grinning happily and teasingly only for them to start getting a dark look, ' _Why does this remind me so much of Asuna and Lisbeth when they were about to scold me for doing something very stupid?'_ , and with their growing presence and aura they were radiating he suddenly wanted to run very far away when they both, with the sternest possible look told him that he was NOT GETTING INTO ANOTHER FIGHT AGAIN!

"Jeez, you two don't have to overreact, how big is the chance that we are going to fight again so soon?" The words may have sounded like nothing was wrong, but he was steadily getting smaller and smaller under their looks, "right guys?" that last part already came out a lot weaker and if it continued he was seriously going to make a tactical retreat, fighting monsters he was good at, fighting against superior numbers was no problem at all, even if his body was still weak, but going against his female friends, well Asuna, Lisbeth and Silica had already proven in SAO that that was a pointless and unwinnable battle.

Before he could decide on either tactical retreat or a last ditch effort speech to save him, Mizore was already in her beautiful, ' _Huh, from where came that?'_ , ice/monster form again and the look in her eyes, narrowed into slits, focused only upon him, her smile, oh the menacing smile and her claws that were scratching against each other told him that he had a rather small choice in the matter if he would fight again or not.

Conceding but still securing himself a little loophole he gave in and promised them that he wouldn't fight anybody, as long as nobody threatened one of his friends and going by the way their aura turned from menacing to relaxed again he decided that he had chosen the right words.

"Well we should be heading to class, it almost time for the first lesson to start."

"Oh you're right Kirito, come on let's go."

They entered the class with the last ring from the bell and were in their seats just as teacher entered the class and started to tell them about an announcement she would make in the second hour and then started the lesson like normal and after a few minutes Kirito decided he knew enough about that course for the moment and looked through the class again, observing his classmates and potential alleys or enemies depending on the situation.

Saizo's seat was empty, but that didn't really raise any eyebrows since he was the type to skip class and it would probably take some time until the news got around that Moka royally trashed him and that he would probably change classes to escape her furry, at least he believed that he wouldn't see Saizo in his class again after Inner Moka, he decided to call her so, had so thoroughly mopped the floor with him.

Looking at Mizore he noticed that she was as concentrated as him and had started drawing again, he would have to ask her after the lesson to show her painting to him, he really liked them, she just had a way to catch all the details perfectly and if he didn't know better he would have believed whatever she painted would come out of the picture in the next few seconds. If she ever started painting for money he was pretty sure that he could soon call himself a friend of a millionaire.

When he finally completed his look around his eyes stopped on Moka, only to notice that she again looked very pale and was having trouble concentrating on class, going by the look in her face and the fingers that were messaging her temples.

Frowning he decided that after the second lesson he would confront her about it and if nothing else ask her about other options beside tomato juice, because looking as things stood right now the tomato option wasn't really working out too great.

The announcement that Shizuka made was also made by the other homeroom teachers and was about the fact that every student had to join a club to better integrate themselves into human activities. The positive aspect of that was that the lessons ended after that so that the first years could go looking for the club they wanted to join and explore other clubs they might be interested in. Shizuka also used the announcement to promote her newspaper club, but going by the responses from the class she hadn't scored any potential members with it.

Kirito used this opportunity to bring Moka to the roof, followed by Mizore who had a rather good idea why he wanted to have some privacy. Talking about ones monster form was firstly forbidden and it really wouldn't do to let Moka's secret slip just because Kirito talked about her anaemia in the class and somebody overheard him and connected some dots.

"I didn't even know that we were allowed to go onto the roof." Moka was trying her best to look cheerful and normal, but even so it wasn't a difficult task to see through this hasty erected mask and behind it Kirito and Mizore could see her suffer.

"Well the stairs up here weren't blocked, so I would say we are at least in a juristic grey area. Besides, as long as nobody sees us, nobody is going to complain about it." Scratching his head he tried his best to find a way to start with the main topic why he had even brought her here.

After drawing some blanks, a pleading look to Mizore, who had just as much ideas about it as he had, he gave up and went with the classic straightforward approach. "Moka, I know you said that you were ok, but Mizore and I are really concerned about you and I am pretty sure that what you are doing is not good for your body."

"What? No, I told you, I'm ok, I just have to wait until the conserves arrive…" she trailed off and avoided Kirito's gaze but he had a distinct idea why she was so reluctant to rely on him or Mizore. He may be dense concerning girls that are interested in him, but he is rather sharp in other areas. "That will take two days and you already look like you are going to fall over any minute now. How much blood would you need to be ok again?" There, the question was out.

"Oh not too much, just a sip and I would have enough if it was fresh human blood, if it's monster blood it would take a bit more and if it wasn't fresh than a bigger quan …" she trailed off again, just now realizing what Kirito was inevitable offering with his question and with a slightly panicked voice Moka tried to refuse him, "No, I can't accept your blood, that would be way too much to ask of you."

"I already told you that I would help my friends whenever I could and that wasn't exclusive for battles." Kirito met her unsure gaze with a reassuring smile, trying his best to make her fears vanish. He really could understand her point, three days ago she had no friends and was bullied in the human world, then she finally gets into Yokai Academy and Saizo happens, so she didn't want to do anything that would make us leave her alone, even at the cost of her health.

"And if he wouldn't do it, I would help you, that's what friends are for, we help each other out, no matter the situation." Mizore too tried to reassure her and going by the smile and happy tears Moka was shedding it worked pretty well.

"Than…Thanks guys, you don't even know what that means for me." She was wiping away her tears and was sporting a smile so pure and big that Kirito knew then and there that he did the right thing, even if she understated it and needed a litre of his blood. ' _On a second thought, that would be rather bad, I think I wouldn't survive too long if she always needed a litre of my blood.'_

"Then can I?" she asked, blushing slightly.

"Sure" Kirito answered her while lowering his collar so Moka could see the bare skin of his neck. Her blood deprived mind immediately made out his carotid artery, pulsing with his delicious red life juice, practically inviting her to take a bite, but with a last ditch effort she managed to control herself and not directly bite into the artery, instead sinking her hungry fangs into his skin next to it with a cute "Itadakimasu". And with that Moka's world exploded.

Kirito had thought it would hurt when she did the dead, but instead he was feeling better than ever, his eyes slightly glazed over, his brain filled with luck hormones, the feeling was so great, he almost lost the feeling in his knees and fell over, only to notice that Mizore had moved next to him and steadied him.

"Don't you think that that's enough Moka? Hey Moka? Kirito is already weak in his knees; if you don't stop we will have to carry him to the clubs." Mizore wasn't overly concerned, since Moka had bitten into him only a few minutes went by and there was no way that she could drain him in such a short amount of time, but going by the look on both their faces they were in some form of ecstasy and definitely forgetting about the fact that Kirito hadn't an unlimited amount of blood, so she decided to at least snap Moka out of it.

Drowsily Moka moved her eyes to meet Mizore's, the ecstasy induced fog slowly lifting from her brain until it functioned semi normal again and she detached herself from Kirito, a longing look on her face.

Still sporting a blush Moka started to compliment Kirito about the quality, taste and every other aspect of his blood, mentioning that she may be getting an addiction to it and that she felt better than ever before, practically bursting with energy. Mizore too was already seeing improvements in Moka's condition; she was no longer pale and looked like she just went to heaven.

Kirito himself only heard parts and bits of her compliments to his life liquid, still trying to clear his foggy mind, not that he tried too hard to do it, for all he minded it could have taken a lot longer, it wasn't every day that he felt like this. He didn't even have the right words to describe it, it was just great and exhilarating.

Mizore was seriously considering letting Moka drink her blood tomorrow, one of them would have to do it and looking at those two definitely indicated that it would be more than just a pleasant affair.

When the last lingering effects of Moka's snack time left Kirito's system he was surprised to find out that there were no traces left of where Moka had bitten him.

With that problem sorted out and after Kirito's knees were steady again the three of them decided that it was time to go looking for their club.

It should have been an easy affair, find a normal club, register and show up to some club activities afterwards. Yeah right, as if that would happen. The photography club was split between perverts who wanted Moka and Mizore to join them to make photos no girl would ever approve of and the cowards who didn't want to have anything to do with Moka because of Saizo. It was really surprising what reputation Saizo had gained after just two days, even if it were just the first years, most of them did their best to not get involved with him at all. The Paranormal Activity Club, the Mummy Club and the Acupuncture club were also big no goes and once they saw the chemistry Club it became rather evident that normal clubs were quite rare.

"What about the swimming club? That sounds rather normal or not?" Kirito had seen a poster about it and the description sounded not too bad and they were lacking members which meant even if there were some strange guys in the club with so little numbers they could probably avoid them in the pool.

"Sorry, I'm not too great with warm water and I'm rather sure that the other members won't enjoy it if I turn the temperature down to slightly over freezing." after seeing Moka's relieved look at her argument she added, "besides Moka wouldn't be able to use the pool anyway."

At Kirito's confused look Moka told him that as long as the water wasn't treated with special herbs it would hurt her and drain her of her powers.

"I thought only crosses, holy water and garlic could harm vampires?" ' _But then again that knowledge comes mainly from games and old fairy tales.'_

"No, those are just some prejudice that my race has to face since almost forever. Crosses can just seal our powers, garlic just smells really bad and holy water has the same effect as normal water, because of its purifying nature water drains us of our Yoki and through that harms and hurts us." While Moka was instructing him about this Kirito had to prevent himself from grinning, Moka was giving of the picture perfect teacher image, slightly stern look, concentrated, 'teacherisch' voice, no everything fit, if Moka wasn't going into modelling business or something else she definitely had potential as a teacher.

Before Moka was able to continue her lecture they heard screams coming from the swimming club area.

Once they arrived there Kirito was really glad that his friends had some trouble with normal warm pool water, because if they hadn't he was pretty sure that he would be with the poor males that were being drained by mermaids at the moment. "Shouldn't we go get a teacher to stop them? I don't know much about monster business, but killing students in a club is probably not to good, right?"

"Well it looks more like they just drain them a bit so they are probably going to live and I really doubt that a teacher would be here before they are finished." Mizore told Kirito with a tone that showed him that she wasn't really too concerned with the situation.

"So we just let them be?" Mizore knew then and there that she probably shouldn't have been so nonchalant about it, she had already seen that he was the type to go out of his way to help others.

"I could probably stop them, with me having ice powers and all, but what do you want to do with then? They need the absorbed energy to survive and I am pretty sure that they won't be too happy if we interrupt them." While they discussed this they slowly got closer to the pool, Kirito and Mizore in the front and Moka slightly behind both, she just wasn't feeling right to go too near to something as dangerous as a pool.

-_-_-(Some time before with Swim-Club-Captain Ichinose Tamao)-_-_-

The day was looking really good, they had managed to get enough new club members to sate they hunger, but that one gem she had first smelled and then seen at her first day of school had sadly not been with the new recruits. He had just smelled so divine, just as good as a human were rumoured to be and he was definitely good looking, so she had been really looking forward to sinking her fangs into his flesh.

After swimming and playing around a bit she decided it was time for the main event to start and once she gave the signal all the other mermaids started with the meal. Water was their element and the other monsters that had joined were chanceless and easily subdued and feasted from.

She was about to claim her second meal when that delicious smell entered her nostrils. Looking around she spotted that boy again, standing next to a pink and a purple haired beauties next to the entrance to the pool.

In their blood thirst Kirito was like a gigantic blinking sign that said delicious food and more than half of the mermaids let go of their first victims and leaped in Kirito's direction.

-_-_-(Back to Kirito again)-_-_-

Maybe going near the pool wasn't the best of their decisions, but they were still only at the entrance and at least twenty metres away from the pool so he had thought that nothing too bad could happen and he was distracted by the discussion he was having with Mizore, so once he heard water splatter on the ground and saw six mermaids heading towards him his response was a pure reflex which was ingrained into him from his time in SAO.

One hand reached behind his back, just to confirm to him again, that no this was not SAO but the real world and that here he had no trusted blade on his back. Luckily for him that wasn't the only action he took. While his hand grabbed for nothing he jumped backwards to win some ground against is opponents and get into a fighting stance.

This leap saved him from the jaws of two mermaids, one was the captain if he remembered correctly, but because of his distraction he had forgotten about the fact that Moka was behind him and crashed into her, both of them falling to the ground, now being more than just easy targets.

Mizore was distracted fighting off four of the original six mermaids, her power gave her an advantage, but four against one was still no easy fight for her. She was in a stalemate against her opponents. She would be able to win, she just had to endure and freeze them one at a time, but that would take some time and the remaining two mermaids didn't look like they would wait for her to help her two friends. She knew that Moka was strong, probably the strongest monster on the Academy, but only once her Rosario was removed and she just hadn't the attention to spare to look at them and see how their fight went. If they managed to separate Kirito and Moka than removing the Rosario would be impossible.

Kirito was really unhappy with himself. He got careless and was distracted even thought someone was fighting in his proximity and now he was lying on the ground, defenceless, Moka right next to him and Mizore fighting against her own foes.

He saw that his two opponents readied themselves to leap again at them and he did the only thing that was possible in his momentarily position. Without hesitation he flipped himself on Moka, shielding her with his body, all the while cursing the fact that his body was still so weak and that the jump from before or the crash with Moka, he wasn't too sure, had opened up parts of his wound again.

Preparing himself to be on the receiving end of two wide open mouths with rows of sharp tooth he was surprised to see Moka's Rosario. Or better said the red eye in the centre of the cross that was intently watching him, some drops of his blood right next to it on the other parts of the Rosario.

' _Heh, did my blood cause some reaction-…'_ before he could finish his thought he heard the commanding voice of inner Moka and without even a slight hesitation he followed its orders to the letter. "Hurry up and remove my Rosario!"

The instant he did so a massive wave of Yoki was released from Moka's body, changing the colour of her hair and stopping the two mermaids centimetres from their target, Kirito's back and also causing the other mermaids to freeze up at the sudden display of power.

Not one to miss an opportunity Mizore made sure that that freeze up was a little bit more permanent, meaning she froze every mermaid in the pool and the four that had attacked her, the two that had attacked her friends she wasn't able to freeze, because they were already sailing through the air, both with the imprint of Moka's foot on their bodies.

"Know your place!" Moka gave the two downed Mermaids, now imbedded into a wall, a last glance which contained quite a lot of killing intent and turned to Kirito, who was still lying on the floor, yep he definitely loathed his weakened state now, being defended by girls didn't really matter to him, the old 'knight saves damsel in distress' concept was already perfectly crushed by Asuna in SAO, but not being able to defend himself and his friends, that he really couldn't stand. Forget about doubling his training to get his body back in top condition, he would triple it, besides since there was no internet he had quite a lot of free time on his hands, which he would now definitely use for training, even at the cost of his napping time.

"You have my thanks Kirito; I have to say I am impressed by you, not everyone would have gone to such lengths to protect someone." ' _Yes, he's definitely an interesting individual.'_ She extended her hand to him offering him her help to get up.

He thankfully accepted the help, "There was nothing impressive about what I did, I am still way too weak, without Mizore who took the brunt of the attack they would have probably finished me off before I could even touch the Rosario."

"You're underestimating your worth Kirito, even though you're weakened and a human you still managed to avoid the first attack and then protected Moka from harm." Miozore entered the conversation after she had freed the victims from their ice pool prison.

"No, I'm way too weak; I have to start improving myself as soon as possible, especially since I am only a human. Both of you won't always be with me and I should at least be able to defend myself until help arrives, as I am now I will probably survive the first and second strike and lose with the third." At least his last two fights would have ended that way if it wasn't for his two friends.

"Oh god Kirito you're bleeding!? Did they get you; I thought you avoided the attack?" Mizore only now saw his blood stained shirt, she had thought nothing had happened to him since both he and Moka were so calm, but the red on him definitely wasn't a good signal and entered a semi panic.

"Ahh…" Kirito scratched his head again, "I think I reopened parts of the wound Saizo gave me again."

That calmed her down somewhat and brought about a realization that confused her quite a bit. _'Why did I go into panic mode as soon as I saw the blood? The amount is rather small, Kirito looks a little worse for wear but beside that fine and when he got the wound from Saizo I definitely didn't panic like that. Why is that? Normally I wouldn't have jumped to conclusions so fast.'_ Brooding over that she missed the last parts of Inner Moka's conversation with Kirito.

"Well looks like I have to visit the doc again."

"You know, you are quite something."

"Hmm, what do you mean Moka?"

"Nothing against your kind, but I'm sure that most of you would react rather different to me, my race, this entire school and most definitely would they have a different reaction to such a wound. Not to forget that you are still a teenager."

"I have lived through worse and besides, I am pretty sure that you are just as old as I am." His confident tone was back and Moka was definitely refreshed by his statement. He treated her like a friend, without fear or cowering before her, it was a great feeling, not to forget his blood too tasted great. She wasn't in control when Outer had drunk it, but she was abruptly brought out of her slumber once she registered the taste of him.

"That's true, but I was trained and prepared for this world, not to mention that I am what you would call one of the strongest monsters."

"Well I also had two years full of training." He said that with a whisper, more as a thought, but Moka heard it, but she decided to not call him out on it, whatever he meant, she saw that it wasn't one of his pleasantest memories. "Once I am back to full strength again would you mind a spare me?"

"Oho, getting confident are we?"

"No no, I know that I probably won't stand a chance against you, but it would be interesting to see how I measure up to you and the best way to get stronger is to fight opponents that are stronger than you or am I wrong?"

"Hahaha, no, you're right, it's a strenuous method but definitely a fast one. But I will have to hold back quite a bit against your frail body once you are ready." She was right, he was definitely not average and she would probably have to search half the world to find someone similar to him, well he could introduce her to Asuna, but that's still in the future and nothing Moka knew about.

"Don't worry, I am a lot more resilient then I look and I know a trick or two with the sword." He knew he didn't stand a chance against her if she went all out, but providing her a good fight was well within his possibilities once his body was in peak condition again and he held two swords in his hands. He wasn't as strong or fast as her, but skill wise he was at least at her level once it came to swordplay.

"Nice, you are definitely great. I'm looking forward to it." And even though she didn't realize it that was the first time that Inner Moka had a genuine smile on her face.

After that she reattached her Rosario again and Outer took over. Mizore meanwhile finally came out of her own little world and concluded that she needed more time to think about her feelings and what Kirito really meant to her.

Once they reached the infirmary and entered Kirito was greeted by the nurse who had a very unhappy look once she saw him. "Doctor, the boy is here again, looks like his wound opened up again!"

"Coming! Didn't I say something like don't show up here until you are healed again?" Even though he said that he had a nice expression on his face and the scolding was only light-hearted.

The patching up of Kirito was a fast and simple affair, changing some stitches and bandages, new ointments and he was ready to leave again. "By the way, I won our bet."

At Kirito's puzzled look the nurse handed the doc a few money notes and glared at Kirito, "Couldn't you have come back in four days? Then I would have one the bet."

"Don't worry about her, so finished, you can go now and come back in four days to get the stitches out or sooner if you get into a fight again." ' _The headmaster was right, that boy is interesting.'_

With that they left to go look for the clubs again, not that they had high hopes, the only normal club they had seen turned out to be a den of dangerous mermaids, no to forget that the nature of the club alone was a problem for both of his friends, but they had to join a club, so maybe they had just overlooked the one normal club they were searching for.

But they were spared searching for another club by none other than their teacher Nekonome. It turned out that nobody had joined the newspaper club and beside them there was only just one other member. Since that was probably the most normal club they would find and with a nice, even if slightly airheaded, supervisor like Nekonome they decided to join.

The first club meeting would be tomorrow, so the three of them decided to call it a day and leave for their dorms, at least two of them, the third had someone to stalk.

The one being stalked never noticed the purple hair that was in the corner of his window and started with his workout once he arrived in his room, he couldn't do any strenuous things because of his wound, but basic muscle training was still more than possible.

 **AN:**

 **And that was it for this chapter :D**

 **To answer a few questions that have popped up or are going to pop up with this chapter:**

 **Tsukune will make an appearance, but it will be rather minor, probably one or two chapters depending on how it goes.**

 **Kurume will show up next chapter, I haven't forgotten about her, but I really didn't like her introduction so I am going to change it ;-)**

 **Thanks a lot for the reviews, favourites and follows this story already has, I am really impressed how fast I got them :D**

 **As always, chapter is not proofread, so point out if you find anything, otherwise I will probably proofread the story once a bit more chapters are out.**

 **And a big thanks to MiskWisk who pointed out a rather big grammatical error (which now hopefully won't happen again) and some other minor error, who has now been corrected.**

 **So tell me what you think about this chapter and the conversation between Inner and Kirito at the end (I had quite some trouble writing that part) and tell me if it was good or crap ;D**

 **Disclaimer: I own neither SAO nor R+V**

 **And for the ones waiting for the next chapter of black knight, that will take some more time, I need more experience before writing that story any further and the dreaded thing known as writers block hit me pretty hard for that story.**

 **The only other news I have is that I am probably going to start a third story, another crossover between Zero no Tsukaime (Familiar of Zero) and Psyren; to everyone who doesn't know Psyren, it is a GREAT manga that is way too underrated and I just love it 3**


	4. Chapter 4

**And here we have chapter 4 of The Black Snowstorm :D**

 **Writing the Gin part of it was way too difficult :( The first time I wrote it, it was basically me bashing Gin (I like the character, so that was a no go) and when I rewrote it, it just didn't want to be written or something, it took me three times more time to write that part than normal and I'm still not too happy with it :( and then Mass Effect 1 &2 happened and well you can probably guess the rest xD**

"xxx" **talking**

' _xxx_ ' **thinking**

 _Xxx_ **Report**

 ***story start***

It was the second day that Saizo hadn't shown up for school and already the first rumours were starting to circle around. At the moment those were just in Kirito's own class, but they would probably soon reach the ears of the other students and Kirito wasn't sure what to think about some of them. At first he had thought that the news that Moka defeated Saizo would make the round eventually and the other students would start to treat her normally again.

Well he was wrong on a few points, because, Saizo's defeat was attributed to him and once he tried to correct them and told them that he didn't do it, they just said that he was way too humble and that Moka was really lucky that I would amuse myself with her. That last comment was definitely the wrong thing to tell Kirito, because as soon as he heard it the killing intent that filled the class could only be rivalled by Inner Moka and in turn shut up this part of the rumour, but also increased the other part and soon the rumours of a black-haired first year with immense power would circle around the school.

On the positive side Moka was finally free from most of the whispers after that happened, because nobody wanted to earn the ire of Saizo's defeater and after the display of his killing intent, which was another thing he was SAO thankful for, without the game he would have never been able to display it, it was pretty clear that if you wanted to touch his friends you would have to answer to him.

Another positive thing was that beside his own class, nobody knew what the mysterious black-haired first year looked like and since Kirito didn't look frightening at all nobody would connect those rumours to him, beside his own class, who were still trying to decide how to handle him. On one hand he was nice, normally had a smile on his face and was definitely good looking with slight feminine features, on the other hand was to note that he had defeated Saizo, at least in their mind, and once someone badmouthed Moka in his presence the presence he gave off was enough to let the anonymous decision fall to not get on his or his friends bad side. In the end most of them chose a wait and see approach.

Once the lessons for the day were over it was almost time for the first club meeting of the newspaper club. First the three of them got onto the roof again and just like they said yesterday, Moka had a taste of Mizore's blood. Mizore now definitely knew why Kirito had said that he could get addicted, the feeling was amazing, if it wasn't for the fact that her blood was limited she would have let Moka suck a lot longer and Moka too was quite surprised, while Kirito's blood tasted so good she wasn't even able to describe it, Mizore's was by no means bad, but this time she was able to categorize it to be mint flavoured. After the afterglow for both had vanished they went down to their new club room.

"We are in the right room or are we?" Kirito's question was justified, because at the moment the only students in the club room were Mizore, Moka and himself.

"It's the room Shizuka told us to meet at and above the door was a sign saying 'newspaper club' so I am pretty sure we are at the right room."

"Maybe we are just a little early and the others are still in their classes?" Moka added in an optimistic tone, but was shot down by Mizore, "No, class ended a long time ago and Shizuka told us that the club had only few members."

"But I hope she didn't mean that we are the only members and already included us when she said a few." Before either Mizore or Moka could answer him and speculate further the door was opened and the teacher in question, Shizuka Nekomone, entered the classroom.

"Well then everyone, thanks for joining my Club! So let's begin with the club activities for the Youkai Academy Newspaper Club!" That statement was followed by utter silence which was broken after nearly a full minute by Kirito with the question all the members present were asking themselves at the moment.

"Sensei, are we the only members?"

"Don't be silly …" the door to the class was opened again "… See, here comes the only other member!"

"EXCUSE ME! Man, I'm sorry! Here I am, late on the first club meeting. Greetings, I am the president of the newspaper club, Morioka Ginei. Pleased to meet ya!" While he introduced himself he handed flowers to the two female club members and flirted with them.

Or he tried too, going by their blank looks Kirito was pretty sure that he had failed rather epically and that both Mizore and Moka were still trying to decide how to react to him. Kirito had just decided that he had found the Academies version of his friend Klein. All that was missing was him proclaiming his age and that he was single and it would be a perfect match.

"Ginei will take over from here, I have to attend a staff meeting, see you later everyone and make friends with your sempai!" with that the cheerful form of Shizuka left the classroom and Ginei, after noticing that his flirting was being ignored, told them about the rules of the club which accumulated to a simple description what a newspaper was and that they had to hand in at least one 3000 word article before the next edition got out. Those 3000 words could be split in either many small or one big article.

"So now that the boring stuff about the rules is over let's get something done, Mizore, Moka could you put up our poster add onto the wall." While both girls started putting up the poster, Kirito took a look at it and was pretty sure that either their teacher or the students had a very different idea about promoting something like a newspaper, normally that wouldn't be done with a poster that had a teacher pointing at a newspaper in it, with blood splatters around the newspapers name, which was by the way Gazette, but that didn't really concern him, he just had to write it, since it was the only paper there wasn't much competition about the readers and therefore promoting it was almost unnecessary. ' _Yeah, having an absolute monopoly is quite nice.'_

"You need to put it up higher." Once Kirito brought his concentration back on what was happening around him he knew that he owed Klein an apology. Klein may be single and desperate and some other things, but at least he never got as low as peeking, which Gin, he told them to call him so, was doing at the moment, looking under both girls shirts while telling them to get the posters higher to get a better view.

' _Now that can't be possibly left like that.'_ "Mizore, Moka mind looking at me for a bit?" Kirito said with the most innocent sounding voice he could muster.

"Sure, why Kiri- GIN WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Gin wasn't fast enough to get away and was now in a very compromising position that showed exactly what he had been doing.

"Ehh… Well… You see… I was just –"

"Peeping at your pants and telling you to raise the posters higher so that I could get a better view." Kirito provided for him.

"Yeah exactly… no wait nooooooo!" and in that moment Kirito knew that girls definitely were the most scary and dangerous creatures in existence and that he preferred soloing a boss over what was just happening to Gin.

After a very severe trashing the four of them decided to look around for a possible scoop, interview people or something else that could be used as an article.

Moka decided that she would write an article about the sealing aspects of different kinds of artefacts and went to the library to research some more controversial means than a classic cross or talisman.

Mizore took a camera and vanished from sight, not that that was something new, but Kirito was still impressed how perfect she could pull of that move.

Kirito decided to write a self-defence guide 'human technics, to defend oneself without the use of monster powers', which could be pretty useful for monsters, considering that some of them had to transform to access their power which would cause problems once they were in the human world.

Gin, in his element took off to interview the students, though those interviews were centred on the female student body and stopped once he got to a girl that knew about Kirito. What he heard was not exactly too his liking.

"You mean that black-haired boy with the beautiful effeminate looks and onyx eyes?"

"Yeah that guy." Gin was not happy with the description but he couldn't begrudge the boy or the turquoise haired girl about it, Kirito was good looking and even though Gin didn't like it, denying it wouldn't change anything, but as far as he had seen Kirito was at least happy with the two girls he already had.

"Hmmm, what I know about him? Why do you want to know about him?"

"I am from the newspaper club and I was thinking about writing an article about how other students see you, I'm not sure when or if it's going to be published, but if it is I already know that you will definitely get the highest possible praise from the others." A little flirting was never wrong, at least in Gin's book.

' _If that was his best flirting attempt then he should be really thankful for his looks, a succubus like me won't fall for something like that. Any other girl with some standards probably too if she isn't wooed by his looks'_ "My thank you ..." His personality wasn't her type but letting her harem grow was definitely not bad, "…, now that I think about it, I don't really know much about him beside his name and that he is always together with those two girls. The pink haired one started to tag along him right after Saizo vanished and some speculate if Kirito maybe had something to do with it, but he doesn't really look like a fighter if you ask me. He's polite and friendly but more of the loner type so that's pretty much everything I or anybody else besides those two girls knows about him." ' _Maybe I should look into him a bit; normally I don't oversee guys with his looks. Who knows, maybe he is my chosen one.'_

While the turquoise haired girl was making plans about getting Kirito or at least some more information about him she didn't notice the student taking a picture from her, hiding in the trees.

Gin meanwhile was despairing about the low chances he had with either Moka or Mizore, completely ignoring the fact that the girl he had asked went away, which he only noticed once he returned from his thought process and wanted to restart flirting with her, if his club members were out for the moment, that turquoise haired girl looked good too, only to notice that he was alone.

It was unfair, yeah maybe he had the looks and was nice, but why both of them? Going from the looks those two were probably among the top 5 hottest girls of the freshman and after being busted peeking at them and going by what he just heard, his chances were abysmal. This meant he needed to even the odds with Kirito. _'I think he said he was going to his room writing this guide of his.'_

The fact that maybe Kirito was just their friend or only interested in one of them never even crossed his mind, maybe it had if he had thought longer about it, but that he certainly did not.

-_-_-(boy's dorm)-_-_-

Kirito was halfway through with his first part of the guide when somebody knocked at his door.

"Would you mind coming with me for a second?"

"Yeah sure."

-_-_-(5 min later)-_-_-

*knock, knock, knock*

"Hey Kirito, open up, it's me Gin and I have something I need to show you." After nothing happened and knocking again brought him the same amount of success he decided that this would have to wait another day and went away, he could as easily go alone and indulge himself in his hobby and if he hurried he would make it to the start of the lesson.

-_-_-(With Kirito)-_-_-

"So for what did you need me?" Kirito asked her.

"There are some rumours I want to investigate and write my first story about, but to check them out I need a second photographer." ' _And spending time with you is definitely a perk.'_ "Oh yeah here is your camera. To zoom you need to pull here, press here to take a picture and if you want to switch the films you need to put your finger here …" Kirito got a slight red ting when she grabbed his hand _'Why am I blushing? Yeah she's beautiful and her porcelain white hands touching and intervening with mine, her body near mine, our faces close together … no, bad Kirito, don't go there, she's just a friend get yourself together.'_ "… and then it will come out and you can switch the film." To say Mizore was happy with the reaction she caused by Kirito when she took his hands was an understatement. Now she just had to figure out what that meant for her and what her true feelings were for him. She wished everything would go slower, she still had time until she turned seventeen and normally her race took her time with relationships, but going by her pounding heart it would probably go pretty fast.

"Yes right, press there, pull here, ok got it, now where do we investigate?" and Mizore knew in that moment that a flustered Kirito was a cute Kirito, which meant she would have to up her teasing a bit.

The glint in Mizore's eyes caused a shiver to run down Kirito's back and it reminded him a bit too much of Argo when she was about to tease him for some reason or another.

"Yeah right. *cough* When I went around (stalked) I heard some girls talking about a peeping tom and I want to catch him and write my first article about that. Since PE lessons for the second year girls start soon I want you observe the window that's next to the girl's changing room and take a shot from the peeper if he comes. Meanwhile I will be patrolling around the school and other likely places where he could peep at other girls." _'Or I will be observing you a little bit and then go do all that.'_

"Aye, Aye" Kirito gave her a mock salute with a grin plastered on his face.

"And after the girls are out, come back and deliver your findings and report to me." She said to him in her best military-officer-voice she could muster without giggling.

"Madam" with a last salute he started going to the woods next to the window he was told to watch.

Mizore was already out of sight when he turned his head just a second later.

Just before Kirito was able to enter the woods and find a hiding place he was interrupted by Gin's voice.

"Hey Kirito, I was looking for you." Gin waved at him, a way to big grin on his face.

"Why? Do you need something?"

' _Perfect, I didn't even need to lure him out here. Time for my plan.'_ "Yeah, I wanted to show you something. Do you see that window there –"

"Yeah, but isn-" Kirito didn't get any further because Gin interrupted him.

"Yes that one, do you mind climbing up there and taking a look into it for me? I just need to confirm something."

"Sempai, do you know what's in there?"

"Yeah, you will be definitely in for an interesting surprise if it turns out as I believe it will." _'Or at least it will be a surprise once those photos circle around the girls.'_ Grinning Gin readied his camera to catch Kirito once he 'peeped' through the window.

What Gin didn't notice was Mizore hidden in the trees and the signal she was giving Kirito.

After being slightly confused by Mizore, if he understood her right he should go up to the window, he decided he had nothing to lose and that she knew what she was doing, complied too her.

Taking a last look at Gin after accepting the command from his 'officer' and seeing the now ready camera he had a pretty good idea what Gin's plan was and he had to say he was a bit disappointed.

After he had climbed up on the crates, why there were even crates next to the window of the girl's changing room(?), and just before he turned his head to look into the room he heard the click of Mizore's camera and turned his head to a confused looking Gin who was pretty sure that it wasn't him who made that noise.

When Gin finally turned he saw Mizore coming out of the woods, holding in her hands the camera that had made the noise.

"Hello there Mizore-chan, what are you doing here?" Gin didn't like the fact that he was being spied upon. He still hadn't done anything that could be used against him, but still, had she revealed herself a bit later she would have probably uncovered his plan.

Instead of answering him Mizore once again raised her camera and made a picture of him.

"You don't have to be shy, instead of just taking a picture of me we could spend some time together and edge ourselves into the memory of the other, what do you think." To Gin's bad luck he didn't notice that Kirito had taken the pictures he had put into his pocket and was now holding them next to Gin's head.

-_-_-(next day)-_-_-

It was just the fourth day and the third Kirito had doubled his training to regain his physical prowess, but going by the aching of his every muscle he knew that his training was effective and hard and taxing and straining and cruel, oh had he mentioned it was hard. He had problems moving because everything hurt, but was happy about two particular things. First, even though his training was hard his chest wound hadn't opened up again, he really had to thank the doc for that, whatever he used, his wound had healed faster than the doc had told him and secondly, if he could keep this training up it would probably only take one or two months to bring him back into shape.

Aside from his aching body the morning was slowly falling into a routine. He stood up, washed, ate a little bit and once outside met up with his two friends Mizore and Moka. Today this establishing routine was getting an addition in the form of club work, because they were handing out their newspaper to the other students.

It was their first one and they were really proud of it. It was still a small newspaper with just four articles, one about the newspaper in general and an introduction of the staff, one about self-defence human style from Kazuto Kirigaya, one about sealing talismans from Moka Akashiya and the final one that also made the headline and was the main reason why the newspaper was practically ripped out of their hands:

 **!Peeping Tom apprehended while he was trying to blame somebody else!**

from Mizore Shirayuki and Kazuto Kirigaya

That particular article was also the reason why the newspaper club president was being chased a lot of females at the moment, screaming blood and murder.

"And do you guys think Gin learned his lesson after they are through with him?" Kirito asked his two friends.

"He doesn't seem like the type to learn from his mistakes." Mizore stated, satisfied that her article was such a hit.

"I don't like perverts." Even though Moka stated that without raising the volume of her voice Gin somehow heard it and froze stiff for a moment. As it turned out it was a moment to long, because now his pursuer's caught up to him and started to show him why it was a bad idea to peep with very concrete (baseball bats, et cetera) arguments.

The rest of the day went by like every other one, beside the fact that Kirito felt himself be starred at by one of his female classmates.

When classes finished he went to the infirmary to get his stitches out. It was sooner than the doc had told him, but as far as he could see he was healed, or at least to such a degree that he deemed the stitches unnecessary.

Before he got to the doc he saw the girl again that had starred at him during the lessons, but now she was ignoring him, looking stressed and he noticed that she had a crumbled, picture, piece of paper or something similar in her hand, but he could further think about it she left through the entrance and he remembered that he had to pay a doctor a visit.

"It's impressive that you healed so fast, does your monster form excel in that department?" The doctor was really intrigued by this student, even though they were monsters it should have still taken him longer to heal the wound to such a degree that he really didn't need the stitches anymore. A pity that a normal doctor couldn't determine what type of monster he was as long as he stayed in his human form.

"Not that I know of, I thought that maybe the ointments you used caused that effect."

"That shouldn't be possible, because of an error we only have medicine that excels at healing genuine humans at the moment. They also work for monster but can't possible cause such an effect. Hmmm." The doc scratched his chin in though, thankfully ignoring the nervous look that flashed over Kirito's face, only to be replaced seconds later with the best poker face he could muster.

"It could be possible if you were a monster with ties to the human race like the witches." The doctor mused and after Kirito asked for more details, which earned him a look from the doctor that screamed, 'why don't you know something like that?', but in the end he was told about the race that resides on both sides, monster and human one, but is despised by both, monsters calling them humans and humans calling them monsters.

"But isn't that a waste? They could act as mediators between both groups." Kirito had a pretty good idea why that didn't happen, but getting attention of his own case was more important than looking a bit naïve, because he knew that humans didn't accept them because humanity as a whole feared the mysterious and the general approach to something they didn't understand was to destroy it, single humans may be okay with them, but humanity as a whole not and the distaste some monsters had against humans he had learnt first-hand, Saizo was a great example for that and even if they weren't the majority, as long as they yelled the loudest witches would have definitely problems with monsters because of their human parts too.

And as the doc gave his answer, he just confirmed his thoughts, because he listed the same things Kirito had just thought about.

"So that's the last of the stitches, another one two days and nothing beside a little scar will be left." While they had discussed the witches the doc had proceeded to pull out the stitches and when they finally finished it Kirito was ready to leave.

"Thanks again and sorry for the trouble."

"Don't worry, just take care, I'm pretty good, but even I won't be able to patch you up if you're a corpse."

"Yeah I will try to keep it down to flesh wounds." With that Kirito left.

"I really like the boy, nice work of the director to transfer him in."

"Flattering me will bring you nowhere, but continue, it's still pleasant."

"Well he certainly is interesting for what he is and for keeping his identity I would say my dept to you is payed?"

"Yeah, we're even, but you will still continue to work here right? Would be a petty if I needed to find a new doc."

"Don't worry, it's way too interesting at the moment to just leave, beside my brother would certainly be unhappy if I just up and left, leaving him alone to drive the students around."

"Good." And with that the doc was alone again.

-_-_-(Meanwhile with Kirito, outside in the woods, running to increase his stamina)-_-_-

After the visit to the doctor Kirito went to his dorm room and switched into his gym clothes to continue his training, which he would start with running. That would increase his stamina and being fast while either charging an enemy or tactically retreating from one was definitely not a bad thing in his book.

Since he still wasn't too familiar with the surroundings of the school it would also help him to learn of those and who knows, maybe he would find a hidden dungeon. _'Yeah right, as if that would happen in real life… in a monster school … in a different dimension … hidden from the rest of the world … why do I have the feeling that I just jinxed myself?'_ Kirito sighed, he just knew that someday something would happen and he would have to go into a dungeon that was on the school, it just wasn't possible that fate and the world wouldn't do something to make it happen, after he had thought about it like that. At least he wouldn't be bored.

While he ran he noticed another problem that had developed itself in the last few days. He had only one school uniform left! The first one had a bloody cut from Saizo, the second one didn't have the cut, but the blood on the same place as the first uniform. If anything happened to his last uniform he would probably have to go to school in his normal clothes. Well he liked the colour black anyway a lot more than his current school uniform and if he was going to destroy two or more school uniforms per week it would probably be better if he just used his normal clothes, going by what he had seen some more eccentric students wearing he shouldn't get into any trouble for it.

During his contemplation about his clothes Kirito had further followed the path he had randomly chosen and now could see a small cottage in the distance. That wouldn't have been very surprising, seeing as the dimension or whatever he was in was rather big, it would have been more weird if the school buildings were the only structures in it, but what caught Kirito's attention wasn't the fact that there was a building on his path, nor how the cot looked, instead the slimy something that was slowly squishing itself through the door was what had caught his eye. He upped his tempo and cursed again about the fact that he had no swords, because the possibility that whatever was happening in front of him would develop in a situation that would cause him to fight was rather high.

-_-_-(Kurumu)-_-_-

Kurumu's day had gone from nice to nightmare. The day was nice when she had researched about her latest interest, namely the black haired bay that was sitting diagonally in front of her and she was, after looking into him a bit, really contemplating adding him into her harem, possible even as her special one, he was strong going by the rumours at least, good looking, the feminine part just improved his looks and as far as she had seen from what little interaction he had with the rest of the class he was also nice. A problem could be that he was always together with those other two girls, but she wasn't a succubus for nothing and really liked a challenge.

That was when the day was still nice and wonderful for her. Then she found a love letter. That would have been nothing too surprising; she had made to quite a lot of boys suggestive gestures and had even managed to get her own fan club after just two days. What had made the day a nightmare was the content of the letter. Next to map which told her how to get to the cot she was now in, there were a lot of photos of her in every possible situation, ranging from her sleeping in her bed, changing clothes, hell there was even one when that sempai had asked her about Kirito.

When she arrived at the cot she met Kanou. He was sitting on a branch of a tree, sweating, at least she believed that he was sweating, and after introducing himself as Kanou Nagare he had asked her if she remembered him. Which she definitely did not. He was one of the many she had swooned to add to her harem, but as it turned out that was quite a big mistake on her part. He stalked her and got jealous of all the other boys she talked to and after he had accumulated enough pictures his genius plan was to blackmail her into cosplaying for him to take more pictures and to cut off all connections to the other boys.

The first part was probably because of a fetish he had, yeah that monster was definitely a pervert, and the costumes would probably get a lot worse than the first one he had suggested, which was a maid outfit and Kurumu was definitely not stupid enough to let him get more leverage on her so she flat out refused him to be his little dress-up doll.

As she found out that course of action too wasn't too great, since after hearing her refusal he changed into his monster form and even though she found his human form repelling, his monster form disgusted her to no end. He was some kind of slug monster and looked like he came straight out of a Bollywood horror movie or a nightmare of an overenthusiastic housewife.

She had been disgusted but not too worried, he was a slug what could he possibly do to her; a strong succubus with the ability to fly and lengthen her nails to such an amount that she could slice through trees without any problem?

That was answered when Kurumu's body was left by its strength and with the last ounces of it she fled into the cot, closing and blocking the door, while hearing Kanou talking about how great it was to be a Madslug and how his body was constantly releasing a paralyzing gas when he wasn't in his human form.

And while she had reminisced why her day had turned into a nightmare she was made aware of another very problematic aspect of a slug monster.

"Kurumu-chan, it's nice isn't it? My body can slip through the tiniest cracks since I'm a slug monster, but you probably already figured that out right? You are an intelligent girl so you should already know that, right? But then again you always flirt with the other boys so you are probably very naïve, right? You should know that they are just going to use you, right? But don't worry, I'm going to save you from them and then we can keep doing photo shootings with you as my sole model, you are grateful for that, right? And after the shootings we can do some things that will turn you into a real woman, right? I will use you too, but at least I will take good care of you KURUMU-CHAN!"

' _N-No! I don't have any energy left in my body! What should I do? I don't want to end up with him! I still haven't found my destined one and now that monster is going to defile my body! Nooo! I-I don't want too! Why isn't anybody helping me? What good is a harem of boys if they aren't there when I need them? I charmed them into mindless drones and now that I would need one to save me nobody's here. Great! Just great, I don't even have enough power left to use charm on that slug to save my body from him and all because I wanted to have the entire male school body to be in my harem. How stupid am I? I wanted to find my chosen one, my love and while charming the first years I don't even have one person that cares about me for real and that would worry about where I am at the moment and save me. Really it's great! I have to be almost raped to realize that charming the boys is not the way to get her destined one. How should she even find him in the sea of mindless boys that she created?'_

"Oh? You have gone all silent, have you maybe accepted the fact that you won't be getting away from me? Since this is such a special occasion maybe we should postpone the photo shooting and start with making you into a woman? You have nothing against that, right? Not that you could do anything against me now that your body was exposed to my gas for so long, you can't even talk anymore, right?"

To Kurumu's despair he was right and was now coming towards her, inching closer with his disgusting slimy body, stretching out his hand towards her body, making her close her eyes in fear of what was about to happen while tears started to appear on her face. She wished that she was on a place very far away, not in a cot with a slimy slug-rapist that would soon do things to her that she didn't want to/couldn't imagine, her brain just didn't let her, holding onto the slim hope that somebody, anybody would come save her, but that shimmer of hope was getting smaller and smaller as Kanou got closer and closer to her, his slime already dropping on her body ruining her uniform and dissolving it, robbing her of her last weak defence that her clothes were.

Just a few more seconds and she would feel his hands on her body, violating it, disgracing her and defiling her, even if her eyes were closed, her mind showed her everything bad that would happen once Kanou finally got his disgusting hands on her only for her to realize that those dreaded seconds stretched longer and longer and after realizing that he still hadn't laid a hand on her she pried open one of her eyes, only to see the back of Kanou turned to her.

It took her mind some time to realize that the reason why Kanou had turned his attention away from her was because of one black haired boy who had opened the door to the cot and subsequently saved her that way. Her almost extinguished shimmer of hope had turned true and somebody had come to save her! She didn't know who, beside the black hair she couldn't see anything from the boy because Kanou's body was blocking her view and as weak as she was now she had no way to move to another position to take a look at him, but whoever it was he had her undying gratitude, not only for getting Kanou's attention away from her, but also because he was luring him away with taunts. And once she saw Kanou's body vanish behind the cot's door she decided that her way of doing things was wrong and whoever saved her, she would try to win his heart over the good old way.

Kirito was angry. No, he wasn't angry, he was furious. Once he had opened the door he had seen a huge slug like monster trying to rape, of that he was sure going by the almost completely destroyed clothes, a completely defenceless and afraid girl.

His first reaction had been to grab a pole that was right next to the door and slam it with as much power as he could muster into the body of that monster.

That hit would have probably broken some bones, monster or not, if Kirito's target had any to begin with, which Kanou didn't. All that attack did was get Kanou's attention away from the girl and instead he had turned around and was now looking at Kirito who, thanks to encountering monsters with similar effects in SAO, realized that his body was giving something off that weakened his body.

His mind was just registering that fact, when his body had already moved away from the monster, into a distance were he believed himself to be relatively save from the ability of the monster.

"Who the hell are you?" Kanou was very irritated that someone had interrupted him, when everything was working out so perfectly.

"Doesn't really matter, but what the fuck do you think you are doing to that girl?!" Oh yeah, Kirito was more than furious, after Moka he had found another girl that was almost raped and hell would freeze over before he would something like that knowingly happen.

"What do you think? Kurumu-chan and I were about to do things you can only dream about."

Kirito wanted to jump on him with his swords drawn and show him exactly what he thought about it, but that wasn't possible since he still had no swords with him, blunt damage was ineffective against the Madslug in front of him and if he got too close he would probably end up the same way as the poor girl in the cot.

He was just a few seconds next to Kanou when he had hit him, but he could already notice that his body only reacted sluggishly and that he had only one chance to save the girl.

The fact that the wind was picking up improved the situation a bit for Kirito, since the wind would weaken the effect of the paralyzing gas that Kanou was giving off and even the field out, even if it was just a little bit.

"Well I think that some genetic slug experiment gone wrong was just about to rape one of my classmates!? Do you think I would let something like that happen, you oversized slime ball?!" Oh how Kirito wished that he wasn't so weak or weapon less. It took a lot of him to control his white hot furry and not jump at the bastard, but as he was now he had no chance and so he did the next best thing he could think of in his anger induced state; he would lure him away and then somehow defeat him. But most importantly, bring him away from his victim.

"Nobody calls me a slime ball! And how dare you interrupt me just to ridicule me and stop me from Kurumu!" He definitely had his attention now; all that was left to do was luring him away and making him pay.

"Just be happy that I haven't pulled out the saltcellar to deal with you yet!" Maybe it was some ingrained natural instinct of his species, but once Kirito uttered that Kanou came barrelling towards Kirito, screaming blood and murder and how he would first do that and that to him and later come back to finish what he started with Kurumu.

"Heh, what's wrong slime ball? Can't keep up with me? I'm not even trying!" Sadly that was a lie, Kirito was only slightly faster than the gigantic slug that was chasing him, mainly because he was already affected by the gas, and Kirito was still missing an idea on how to defeat the monster.

"Big words from someone who's only running away."

"Sorry, but you smell so bad that every garbage dump would be a perfume channel No 5 compared to you!"

Kirito's had calmed down his anger to manageable levels, but he was still searching for something that he could use to turn the situation into his favour. That was when he saw it.

"Hoh, finally stopped running, what's wrong, are you feeling weak? Does your body no longer listen to yourself?"

"As if you sick fuck!" Kirito let a branch from a tree slam into Kanou and that bought him some precious seconds in which Kanou didn't see him. Beside delaying Kanou the branch didn't do much else, a body immune to blunt damage was definitely a problem if you had no sharp weapons and were a human.

"Keep talking as long as you still can, but I am going to kill you now!" Kanou was now really anticipating the moment he could kill his interrupter and return to his Mizore.

What Kanou didn't see was that Kirito had gotten a sword from one of the graves and that he was just waiting for him to come closer so that he could deliver one hopefully finishing blow with the old sword he was hiding behind his body.

The sword was rusted and dull and he himself was already feeling the effects of Kanou's gas were getting stronger and stronger, but he had to make it.

With a cry that the most powerful warriors could be proud of Kirito thrust the old sword forward, straight into the centre of the slug-monster's body, using every ounce of strength he had left and to his relieve it worked.

The sword was dull and he had known that he probably couldn't cut the slug with it, not to mention that he hadn't enough strength left for more than one attack and he sincerely doubted that he could defeat the monster with just one attack, so he had positioned himself in a way guaranteed that Kanou would be behind a grave. Better said the grave from which he had gotten the sword and he had noticed another thing about it. The cover was fragile and his sword thrust was enough to make Kanou stagger back and fall onto aforementioned cover, crashing through it and falling into it.

"Take that asshole!" Kirito said exhausted but triumphantly as he staggered away from the grave and back to the cot, he had to see if the girl was ok or not and if he could help her.

When the door was opened Kurumu was panicking again until she saw the black haired boy who had saved her.

"Are you ok? No that was a stupid question, sorry, you're definitely not." Pulling off his track suit jacket and handing it to her he continued, "here take that for the moment and let's get away from here. I have some friends who can probably help you better than me."

"O… Okay and thank you." Kurumu was slowly regaining her strength and was about to disagree with the boy, he had helped her better than anybody else ever could when both of them got out of the cot, only to see an enraged Kanou in front of them.

"Shit, the gas. Couldn't you just stay in that grave for another five minutes?" The effect had lessened over time, but being near him again drained them again.

"Did you think you could get away?! And did you think a little fall could hurt my body?! But don't worry, I am going to show you how to deal with somebody permanently!" Kirito had positioned himself in front of Kurumu again, but couldn't do much more, any longer and he would probably fall over, the gas that the slug was emitting was just way to unfair. He could see Kanou's fist descending upon him, dripping with a probably acid slime _'Now that definitely sucks, offed in the same way Saizo almost did me in, just this time I will be molten instead of crushed'_ and too Kirito's absolute amazement the punch again stopped moments before it reached him, like Saizo's fist back than Kanou was encased in ice, but different to Saizo Kanou couldn't break out and his entire body was encased in it.

Coming out behind one of the trees was Mizore, a concerned look on her face as she sped towards Kirito who had fallen to the ground and asking him, "Are you injured somewhere? Sorry that I wasn't faster, it took me some time to find you after you left from the infirmary."

Kirito didn't even think about pointing out her stalking habits, he was just glad that she was there when she was and that his friend cared so much about him. "Don't worry; you made it just in the nick of time. The girl and I are just a bit weak from the gas that monster was emitting through its body."

"That's a relief, who is she by the way? I just saw that the monster was about to attack you, what happened?" The concern in Mizore's eyes spoke volumes about how much she worried about him and it made Kirito genially happy that she cared so much about him.

"Well you see… I kind of got into another fight again…" Kirito stated sheepishly, only to get a deadpanned stare from Mizore who, after reassuring herself that he was physically okay, said in a tone that matched her momentarily expression perfectly, "Oh you don't say?"

"Yeah, but I had perfectly valid reason for it." His eyes travelled to Kurumu and now finally Mizore took a better look at the other person who was with Kirito and she finally noticed the state she was in, tears on her face, her modesty only saved by a piece of cloth from Kirito, pale as a sheet, she looked terrible and Mizore was reminded of what had happened to her second friend she had made.

"Yeah, that's true, …"shifting her attention to the girl she asked, "… do you have any injuries?" At the shake of the head from the girl Mizore felt relieved, she didn't exactly know her, but nobody should have to go through what must had happened to her going by her state and she resolved herself to help her as good as she could. "We should still go to the infirmary, who knows what other effects that gas could have had on you two. Kirito, can you move again? Caring both of you could be a bit problematic." She could make some ice clones to help her, but that had the disadvantage that both of them would be rather cold and that definitely wouldn't improve their condition.

The way to the infirmary was quiet and once they finally reached it after half an hour Kirito was almost back to normal again and Kurumu could move on her own again.

"Thank you for helping me you two. I don't even want to imagine what could have happened if either of you came just a few seconds later." A slight shiver was running over her body, but before she could continue her dark track of thoughts Kirito interrupted her and pulled her back into reality.

"But we didn't come too late and now you are safe. And we will make sure that nothing happens to you again, right Mizore." He was giving her a winning smile and after Mizore confirmed his promise and that statement helped Kurumu a lot more than both of them could imagine. That promise was probably also the reason why she wouldn't have any nightmares after she was released from the infirmary and headed to her room.

Kirito himself went into his room, the effect of the gas was gone, but he was still winded and soon fell into a slumber, while Mizore was watching him through the window, slightly blushing at his cute form and still feeling amazed on how much he resembled a girl while he was lying there. During the day she noticed his effeminate looks too, but they seemed to increase once he slept and as she looked at him she got a pretty big urge to use him as something similar to a dress-up doll. It would be really interesting to see him in different outfits.

And so another crazy day ended. The next day, Saturday, the first weekend in his new school, Kurumu would greet the three of them and spend a lot of time with both of the girls talking about what happened to her, Moka's first reaction when she heard about it was to embrace her in a big hug and the three of them were fast friends. Her relationship to Kirito was you could say complicated. Her first statement when she saw him was "Morning Kirito! Do you want some of the cookies I baked?" she said that with the biggest smile he had seen on her while holding a plate of cookies. That wouldn't have been problematic, but her continuation of her speech made up for that, "You must know as a succubus I need to find my destined one to love and that was why I charmed a lot of boys but now I know, that was the wrong action to take. I can't charm them into loving me, that uses no one and won't make anyone happy, so I decided, Kirito you are my destined one and I will get you." For a moment he could feel killing intent coming from his right, but that couldn't be, nobody beside Mizore was right from him.

The problem Kirito had with Kurumu's declaration was that he wasn't interested in her that way and that he wasn't sure why but whenever he thought about love a certain purple haired girl came to his mind and as long as he wasn't sure about his feelings he couldn't accept her so he managed to compromise with her that both of them would be friends. How he managed that without hurting her feelings baffled him like nothing else.

The four of them spent the entire day together and at the end of the day Kurumu had decided to join them in the newspaper club, since she still wasn't in any club and she wanted to spend her time with her friends. The headline of the next issue was already decided, it would focus on the attack on Kurumu and about self-defence tricks for girls against guys, Kirito just couldn't do nothing when it only took five days for two girls to be almost raped and with what he and the others wrote in the newspaper he felt that it would help at least a bit, he just couldn't be everywhere at once, not to forget that he was a human, so the girls had to defend themselves, which shouldn't be too hard since they themselves were monsters so they should be able to fight back at least.

 **AN:**

 **This took way too long to write :(**

 **As I said above, writing the Gin part was hard and sorry that there was still no real fighting, but Kirito is just not strong enough to fight them yet, he is still recovering and doesn't have any weapon with him, so I can't really let him defeat someone in a straight forward way with no help or some tricks.**

 **I hope I didn't screw up Kurumu's reaction to being saved, her interactions and most importantly could convey why she wants to be with Kirito.**

 **And something to celebrate: LONGETS CHAPTER YET: ~8950 words !?**

 **If you have questions, compliments or something else to say please leave a review and just saying, as ever, this was not beta-ed and if you find a part that makes no sense, please tell me, I wrote quite a lot at 2am and my brain isn't working perfectly around that time of the day.**

 **HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT :D**

 ***SPOILER ALERT***

 **Just one more chapter and after that Kirito will get his powers/weapons and finally kick some ass again ;D If you want you can guess how he gets them, I already have something in mind, but maybe I can refine my idea with one of yours or if find a complete new approach :D**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing beside my own plot changes, ideas, those are mine, MINE *crazy evil laughter***

 **Edit:** genious 7 noticed that I wrote Mizore instead of Kurumu, has been corrected, thx a lot :D


	5. Chapter 5

**And here we have chapter 5 of The Black Snowstorm :D**

"xxx" **talking**

' _xxx_ ' **thinking**

 _Xxx_ **Report**

 ***story start***

After the first week school life had settled itself into a routine for Kirito. He got up, made himself ready for school, met his three friends outside of the dormitories, they went to school together, sometimes discussing something, more often than not Kurumu would fight with Moka and Mizore about Kirito other chatting about what they were going to write next for their newspaper and so on.

Their newspaper was pretty popular with the school and they had to triple the amount of papers printed to meet the demand from the student body. Gin, their club president also improved himself, he was still a pervert, but at least he stopped his activities as peeping tom and was now mostly concentrating on Moka, Mizore and Kurumu, but because of that he more often than not ended up being beaten to a pulp. Now Kirito could him almost compare to Klein, Gin was just more of a pervert, but still a good friend.

Kirito himself had, thanks to his continuous training finally improved his body enough that he could move it in the way he wanted to and now stood a relatively good chance against some of the weaker monsters weapons less and if he had a sword or a pole or something similar he could probably take on a monster in Saizo's class. He wouldn't be able to beat him in the strength department, but he was at least as fast as Saizo had been and that coupled with his reaction speed would probably make it impossible for someone like Saizo to hit him if he concentrated.

And that was also one of the sore spots Kirito still had. He had no weapon, since it was a school, running around with a sword was out and without out it even if a monster like Saizo couldn't hit him, he himself couldn't deal out enough damage to defeat his opponent, all he could do is stall them and wait for one of his friends to deliver the finishing blow, which was depressing, not because he had to rely on a girl but because he himself wasn't able to do it and he would be screwed if his friends weren't with him or for one reason or another not able to help him.

On the positive side Kirito was pretty good in his subjects. Moka and he were at the top of their class and another good thing that happened was that the degrading rumours about Moka had finally stopped. His own were still circulating around, but nobody was talking bad about Moka anymore and he didn't really care about the fact that rumours were told about him.

And Kirito finally managed to pursue his hobby again. He had really missed doing it, but because of what happened in the first week and his training, school, friends and club activities he could only start with it when the third week was almost over again, but after that it got better. Now he could finally do it again and he was genially happy about it. He could finally nap again. And the roof was the perfect place for it.

But he wasn't alone up there. After a few days were he had vanished to pursue his hobby Mizore had found him, or followed him onto the roof, just a matter of interpretation and now he would find her often next to him when he woke up from his nap again, sitting there and drawing something. Sometimes him, sometimes the surroundings and sometimes something from her memories and after afterwards Kirito would often marvel over her pictures, they just looked way too good. He was a little concerned about the fact that some of the pictures had girls in them that remarkably resembled him but that couldn't be true, right?

All in all life was good, he wasn't stressed, his friends were doing well and he was finally back in action physical wise.

"Morning guys!" Kirito called out to his friends who were waiting for him in front of the dormitory.

"Morning Kirito/Hope you slept well/Morning" He was greeted back by the three girls, immediately followed by something that had helped keeping his reflexes up and refining them to an unbelievable amount; Kurumu's show of affection, namely her smothering him in her breasts. After almost dying of suffocation thrice he had learned to evade her and so he stepped out of the way in the last possible moment and stretching out his hand, he caught Kurumu before she could fall because she had overstretched herself when she missed him.

"Not bad Kirito/I would give that around 8/10 points." Moka and Mizore commented, it was nothing new and part of their daily routine, as well as meeting up on the roof so Moka could suck the blood of one of them, she still preferred Kirito's, but Mizore's mint flavoured and the newly added blood from Kurumu tasted like cherries were by no means not appreciated and every time Moka did suck blood she was reminded of the fact how well everything had turned out. She had friends who accepted her for what she was and even let her suck some of their blood.

They had walked to school when Kirito noticed the crowed in front of one of the signboards, "Do you know why they're all standing there?"

"That's a pretty good question Kirito." Kurumu thought about it for a bit, but nothing really came to mind, but she also didn't really listen to what the teachers were saying and announcing sometimes.

"Maybe the final results for the midterm tests were posted, it should have already been enough time for the teachers to correct them." And as they got closer to the crowed Moka was proven true. They still couldn't see the signboards, but by the shouts and cries of either joy or desperation by the students in the crowds it was pretty oblivious what this all was about.

"Do you guys wanna go look at it later or are we going to fight a way through the masses?" Even though Kirito asked that he already knew the answer to that question, because who didn't want to know how he did on something when the results were there and everybody would be talking about it once they got to class and then it would be pretty annoying to not know it, because of the others who knew and would probably start to tease you about it. And there was that one inner desire known as curiosity which would stir if they didn't go look at the results now and wouldn't leave you alone until you knew it.

And he was proven right by the three affirmative answers he got to his question.

After a bit of shoving and pushing the four friends reached the sign with the results and to the surprise of the group they had at least one in every section. Moka with rank 13th and Kirito with rank 15th were at the top of their class, Mizore was in the upper middle and ranked 95th and Kurumu was one of the dead last in class and only barely made it in the 200 with rank 194th.

"Maybe we should tutor Kurumu? What do you think Moka, if she keeps that up she is probably going to flunk this year."

"Yeah, looks like she isn't the brightest in the study department." Mizore added her two cents, only to continue, "maybe I should study too, what do you think about it Kirito? You teach me and Moka teaches Kurumu?"

"If you want to Mizore/I don't really care who I teach so sure, no problem." Moka and Kirito answered her.

"Guys, don't talk like I'm not there, that's not nice and besides who needs good grades, I'm going to be the perfect housewife for Kirito, so who cares about my grades." With that stated she started to launch herself at Kirito to suffocate- show him her affection, only to be evaded at the last moment.

"Mou, since your body's back to normal you always evade me, it was way more fun at the beginning." Kurumu pouted.

"Yeah, I'm finally in working condition again, oh yeah, by the way Moka I think I'm ready to take your other self up on the offer to train me now."

"Are you sure? She's really strong and since you are what you are, you probably won't stand a chance." A second later Moka realised that she basically called him weak and was trying to correct her statement to something not hurtful only to be saved from the embarrassment by none other than Kirito with a smile on his face.

"Yeah I know that I don't stand a chance against her power, but if she holds back and it's solely about skill I believe I should be a pretty nice match for her. And besides, if I don't start to train my skills and speed against her now who knows if I'm able to rescue the next damsel in distress?" Even though the last part was meant as a joke, the girls did not have laughter on their faces, but instead reprimanded him for fighting too much even though he was human and that he should let them do the fighting part. He countered with what he should do if no one of them was there, but that was shot down pretty fast with other arguments. That friendly banter continued until they finally reached their class and entered it just seconds before the school clock could be heard.

Or that would have happened if the world, fate, god or whoever decided that once Kirito jinxed something it had to happen. So instead of banter after Kirito had countered, Moka was seen dashing to a little girl with a witch hat and protecting her against a rough looking freshman and his two handymen.

"STOP!" Moka positioned herself between the girl and the offender, which not only caused the offender to stop in his tracks but also got her the attention of quite a lot students that were still gathered around the area.

"I am sorry I don't have anything to do with this, but I can't let this go! Please stop using violence against girls!" Due to the fact that Moka was in front of the girl she did not see her shocked expression and the blush that shortly followed and painted the girl's cheeks pink.

"Get out of our way –" that was as far as the offender got, before Kirito reached Moka and interrupted him.

"Are you sure you wanna continue this? In front of all the students here?" And true to his words, they now had the attention of all the students gathered.

"Hey, look!" "Moka came to stop him from bullying her!? No way!" "Who's the pretty boy next to her?" … That were just some of the comments being heard now that Kirito had brought the offenders attention to it.

Aforementioned offender now finally realized that he could do exactly nothing because there were too many spectators now. "Tssk, let's go guys! You had better remember this, Yukari!" He snarled and left with his two goons in tow.

"OH, thank you sooooo much, you really saved me! My name is Sendou Yukari!" They still had some time until lessons started, so the now five of them decided to head towards the outdoor lunch area of the school and seated themselves at one of the tables. Normally that area would be packed with students, but it being the morning and with the test results posted they were the only ones there.

"I heard that even though you are in the same grade as us, you're only 11? And even the first ranked in the exams?" At Yukari's nod Moka continued in slight awe, "You're really smart, aren't you Yukari? And your outfit is also really cool."

That last thing Moka had said had an effect on Yukari that Kirito would have never guessed. She was turned into a red stuttering and fluttering mess, that after some failed attempts at communication lowered her head slightly so that the four of them couldn't see her face and continued her communication attempts now more successful with an embarrassed voice: "You're the one who's cool and pretty and sweet, Moka. You know, actually, I … I…"

Kirito to this day liked to say that he was almost always to at least some degree prepared for a situation. Let it be known, Yukari's statement was something he wasn't prepared for in a hundred years. It was impulsive and completely out of the blue.

"… I LOVE you Moka!" Yukari exclaimed, jumping at Moka and hugging her.

The reactions to the confession varied, but were mostly the same: shock, open mouths and surprise.

"Every time I saw you in the classroom across the hall, I fell a bit more for you. But after you saved me, my heart was made up!" Yukari's blush had grown and Moka was still trying to find out what to do with the situation, when she was assaulted by the eyes of an eleven year old, filled with uncertainty, hope, happiness, pleading and many more emotions, it could also have been described as the look a puppy would give a potential owner in the vet.

"Please go out with me! Is that so bad, dating someone like me?" Moka was definitely not knowing how to handle the situation and decided to use the generally accepted plan B everyone could retreat to if they were faced with a confession and didn't know what to do.

"Err… umm, as a friend …" normally that would have discouraged the one giving the confession, but that was not the case with Yukari.

"YAAAAY! I'M SOOOOO HAPPY!" exclaiming that she buried herself in Moka's bosom, causing Moka to let out a girly yelp.

And the entire day Moka was being assaulted by her/their new friend, said assault being concentrated on her two womanly assets and being accompanied by compliments to aforementioned assets.

"You know Yukari, you liking Moka is one thing, but I kind of think you are bothering her a bit if you are groping her the entire time." Kirito decided on the diplomatic approach, not that he believed any other would have brought him any better chance of success.

The reaction he got was not exactly what he had expected, but he had a feeling that it would be the one he would get.

"Please don't get I our way! I know all about you." At the challenging raised eyebrow from Kirito she continued.

"Kazuto Kirigaya, nicknamed Kirito by his friends.

Grades: in the top 15

Ability: Average like a human

No special ability

Girly looks that make you quite popular

I know exactly what you are and why you are with Moka, but I will save her, just as she has saved me! You are the classic pretty boy Casanova and are just her friend to sway her and dump her after a week! But I love her and will not let a low live like you hurt her feelings!" She pulled out her wand, _'Well now I know for sure that she's a witch. The hat could have been cosplay, but that wand looks real and the chance to find a cosplaying eleven year old girl in a monster school is definitely lower than finding a real magic girl/witch in a monster school, especially considering that witches were a hated race, no monster would probably want to cosplay as them.'_ And wanted to continue, only to be interrupted by Moka:

"Yukari!" mentioned person froze up once she heard Moka, "Kirito is not some Casanova! He is my first friend and a really nice person. He protected me and he definitely would not use me just to dump me! Apologize to him." That was followed by stunned silence. Moka just was not the person to give such speeches, or at least her friends believed her to be, because Kirito was not the only person that treasured his friends greatly and would go to hell heaven and back to protect them. Moka had the exact same mentality, she just hadn't had the opportunity to show it until now and as much as she liked Yukari, she would not let her insult her friend without consequences.

"But… but… I thought I finally found someone who understood me! Nobody likes me …

…

…

I don't need ANYBODY!" she waved her wand and summoned some cleaning utensils to stall the four in front of her to make a quick getaway. It took them around five minutes to defeat the brooms and other things and once they finally finished Yukari was nowhere to be seen.

…

…

…

…

…

"Do you think it was wrong of me to say that to her?" Moka asked uncertainly, she had been angry at Yukari for insulting Kirito, but she thought the little girl would just apologize and then they would be friends again.

"No, you weren't wrong, she overreacted to what you told her." Kirito said to Moka.

"Yeah, that was not your fault/She had it coming for insulting our Kirito." Mizore and Kurumu chirped in, all three of them reassuring the pink haired vampire.

That helped Moka a bit, but everyone could still very clearly see the guilt on her face and once she finally asked the question Kirito, Mizore and Kurumu already knew what she wanted.

"Would you guys help me search for her?"

And she got her answer as soon as she had finished with the last letter of her question. "Sure."

' _Coming to this school was definitely the right decision, I finally have not only one but three real great friends.'_ Moka thought while running with the others in the direction they guessed Yukari would be.

-_-_-(With our witch)-_-_-

' _Who needs friends anyway? I'm perfectly fine on my own, that way nobody will be able to betray me. That's right, a genius doesn't need any friends. I don't need them. Who cares if some of them hate me, who cares if I'm alone?! I was always alone, why should that change? … and why won't the tears stop?'_ Yukari didn't even notice where she was running too, her entire attention in her thoughts about Moka and all the other people that she wanted to be friends with or who have hurt her and who she in return played a prank to.

So it was no wonder that the poor little witch never noticed that she had left the school building pushing several students out of the way and was now running into the forest that surrounded the Academy and neared a little pond.

She almost ran into the pond, stopping only a few centimetres in front of it and finally breaking down she let her tears flow without caring that she had told herself that she would be strong and that big girls didn't cry. She cried about being bullied, about being harassed, about being unable to find friends and that she herself often pushes them away and she would have cried about a lot more if she wasn't suddenly shoved to the ground, her face meeting hard unforgiving earth and feeling a hand on her waist.

Confused why somebody was touching her there she brought her own hand to the place only to notice that the hand that had touched her had already vanished. But that was not the only thing she noticed, her wand was gone too!

"Now look who we have here. Our class genius Yukari-chan." He closed the distance to her and continued in voice full of obviously fake sympathy, "Oh what's wrong, why were you crying? Was someone mean to you? Or have you finally noticed what big of an embarrassment you are for this school?"

"Class representative …?" Yukari's thoughts were still a mess so all the insults didn't really register for her, her brain was still trying to reboot when she noticed something in the hands of the class representative and his now three goons _'Heh they're increasing like cockroaches.'_

"Without your little stick you're nothing more than a weak human and you still dare to insult me and my friends?!" Looks like she spoke that last part out loud, "You're not happy with disgracing me in front of all the students, no, you insult my friends too!" He was swelling with anger that bordered on fury, when he took half a step back, broke her wand with his now transformed mouth and after revealing his monster form as Lizardman and spoke with a slightly mad glee: "Witches are such disgusting beings. We don't need something like you in our class, no in the Academy and as a class representative it's my task and duty to rid the Academy of disgusting beings like yourself!"

Yukari saw it in small motion. She could differ every little detail and still could do nothing more than stand still and await her demise. So with morbid fascination she watched as the Lizardman in front of her opened his maul while launching himself at her, his gigantic tooth inching closer and closer to her face, his mouth opened so wide that her entire head could fit in, but she still could do nothing more than stand there, frozen in shock and fear about what was to happen in a few seconds, seeing it in details she had never thought possible, when something else entered her heighten vision. She couldn't exactly determine what it was, it was only on the edge of her vision, but it was coming closer and closer to the centre of her vision that was still fixed on the gigantic tooth when she could make out the first details of it.

It was a hand curled into a fist and whoever the fist belonged to was wearing her school uniform and going by how the hand looked it was probably from one of the male students.

And with that revelation the world began to operate with normal speed again, but the gigantic tooth of the monster in front of the little witch never tasted from her tender flesh.

Instead the tooth, or better said the entire face was met with a fist and enough power behind it to launch the class representative a few steps back, reeling in shock, surprise and anger about what happened.

Now standing in front of his target stood four students, three female and one male and once he recognised who it was his anger increased once more.

"It's you again! Wasn't humiliating me enough?! Now you are defending something as despicable as a witch, just to mock me?!" The green of his scaled face was now overshadowed by a red that stemmed from his anger.

"Nope, we're defending her because she's a friend, whatever monster she may be!" The statement from Kirito caused several different reactions. On the bad guys side mostly disbelieve, the surprise and anger was already there before Kirito had delivered that statement, on his friends side just some nodding and on the little witches side it brought out a large amount of disbelieve and new tears.

"Bu-…But why would you … you be friends with me? … Even though I was so mean to you … and … and … and even though you know that I'm a witch!" It didn't make sense, maybe she hadn't antagonised him a lot, but she had planned to and normally once they knew she was a witch they would shun her, at least her class did.

"Because you're Moka's friend and a friend of Moka is our friend too, right guys?" Kirito was giving her such an honest smile in the few seconds he had turned his head back to her, she barely even noticed the confirmations coming from the three girls.

"You're just as disgusting as the witch! Let's go guys, time to dispose of the witch trash and her friends!" His goons took that command as signal to transform themselves into their monster forms. They were another two Lizardmen and one Tanuki, a monster from the dog family.

They charged forward to end the five students in front of them, only to come to an abrupt stop once they were hit by an aura filled with so much Yoki that they couldn't move for a few seconds.

Once the four monsters had broken out of their spell they took a second look at their prey and suddenly a lot of self-confidence vanished. Standing in front of them was a S-class monster, a real vampire, next to her a monster with ice-powers, obvious because of her ice claws and another monster that was probably a succubus or a devil going by her wings. The boy didn't transform, but the girls alone were enough to frighten them.

At least for a short moment, before they resumed their charge, throwing rational thought out of the window, otherwise they would have retreated, because they didn't stand a chance in hell against a vampire.

"Moka, please take the head Lizard, Mizore, Kurumu mind taking the other two Lizards? I'm gone play a little bit with this doggie here!" Kirito told them and in the next moment they met their opponents, or punching back in the girls case.

Moka took two seconds to eliminate her opponent, the most time spent on saying: "Now your place!"

Mizore took five seconds to cool the head of her opponent down, continuing with the rest of his body until he was little more than an ice statue.

Kurumu too took ten seconds to show the lizard that and enemy that could fly and had really long, sharp and deadly nails was not an opponent he could even dream on handling.

Kirito's fight would definitely not end so fast.

His enemy was some kind of dog-Yokai, probably a Tanuki and that meant he was faster and probably stronger than Kirito. Normally that would be enough to defeat any normal human student, but that was luckily not the case with Kirito. He had already fought enemies far stronger and faster than him in SAO and with the little thinking his opponent was investing into attacking him it was almost like he was fighting Boars on Floor one again. Okay he had no sword, so he had to use the little hand to hand he knew, but that shouldn't bother him too much.

Tilting his head slightly to the right to evade a punch by a hairs breath that he had long seen coming and redirecting another punch with his right hand he sucker punched his opponent in the stomach, only to notice that his opponent almost ignored the action. He didn't shrug it off like Saizo, but it would probably take a lot of time to finish him with just hits to the stomach, so a change of plans.

The girls had finished their fights and Mizore and Kurumu already wanted to jump into the fight from Kirito, when they were stopped by a hand, which belonged to Moka. "Let him fight alone, let's see if he is strong enough to spar with me."

"But he's only human, what are you gonna do if that dog hurts him?" Kurumu exclaimed, never noticing the wide eyes the little witch behind her got once she heard that. _'He's a human and fighting to protect me!?'_

"I wouldn't worry Kurumu, that Tanuki has yet to land a single hit on him, while Kirito already has landed some quite crushing hits. The only problem he has is that he is weaker than the monster in front of him. Skill wise he is so high above him that he would have probably ended the fight as fast as we did if he had our or at least regular monster strength."

"Not bad Mizore, you're pretty observant."

"I pride myself as a first class stalker, so that much is a given." She puffed her chest out a little at that statement.

"I'm not too sure if you should be proud about that."

"Shut it Kurumu, you could almost say it's a tradition for Yuuki-Onna to do that."

During their bantering Kirito was fighting on and his change in tactics was showing the first results. He didn't know that much about monster anatomy, but he speculated that normal weak points such as joints and the head were still the same.

So he targeted them instead of dealing as much damage as possible he had reduced his counter attacks and normal attacks to inflict more damage on those weak points and it was showing a lot faster results than when he had targeted the stomach and other parts of the monsters body.

His opponent was already getting a bit slower and evading him was now easier than ever. Ducking to the right, redirecting another punch to his left, launching his own low kick to make his opponent stumble and once he tried to regain his balance using the momentum of his first kick, or better said sweep he launched a punch at the nose of the Tanuki, one of the main weak points of a normal dog, which was followed by a cracking sound. Because of the blood coming from the nose, Kirito never noticed that his own blood from the wound he had gotten when he had punched the head Lizard in the face had gotten onto the face of the Tanuki.

Further using the momentum of the punch he spun around himself, catapulting into the air and delivering a mighty round house kick to his opponents head whose only reactions was a widening of his eyes as he realized he wouldn't be able to evade or block it, or was it maybe because of the blood? But why would that be? Not that it was Kirito's problem, since he never even noticed it, because his brain in battle mode did not deem it important.

"Impressive for a human." Kirito turned his head towards Moka's voice and answered her.

"That would have gone a lot faster if I had had a sword. Hand to hand is not really my speciality." He replied while scratching his head.

"No, that was really impressive Kirito, for you to defeat him this soundly, it was great." Mizore complimented him and not one to be outdone Kurumu shortly followed: "That was awesome, now I know exactly why you're my destined one!" and he evaded another suffocation-… show of affection attempt from Kurumu, eliciting a pout from her.

"I believe you wanted to ask me if we could start our spars from now on, consider your request granted." Inner had a small grin on her face and looked quite happy about how everything turned out.

"Did you mean it, being my friends?" Yukari asked the four of them who had momentarily forgotten about her, thanks to the display Kirito had shown them. It was unpreceded that a human could trash a monster so soundly without receiving any damage so that was a small wonder, but now the attention was back on her again.

"Sure, as I said before, Moka's friends are my friends and besides how could I not want to be friends with someone as cute as you." Kirito was not the best when it came to understand woman, but thanks to Silica he knew that little girls normally liked it when they were called cute so he went with that.

The results were surprising to say the least. Moka had already attached her Rosario back on again, so she was as unprepared as Kirito when the little witch launched herself at both of them and declared her undying love for them.

They managed to persuade her to be friends first, or at least Kirito believed that they managed that and so his little circle had gained another member that applied to the newspaper club on the same day, much to the happiness of one homeroom teacher.

Yukari's life improved a lot from then on, she stopped playing pranks on her classmates and after an apology most of them were nice to her or at least stopped bullying her.

The only other significant thing that happened was that Kirito had to visit the doctor again to treat his hand, not that the wound was bad, but the blood had ruined his final school uniform, so he wanted to have it bandaged before he ruined his normal clothes with it too.

 **AN:**

 **It took quite some bit, but here is the next chapter :D**

 **As always, not proofread, so point out any mistakes you find I will correct the later on, and I it looks like writing combat scenes is not my greatest forte, but I will try to improve :D**

 ***Spoiler Alert***

 **Next chapter Kirito is finally getting his weapions**

 ***Spoiler Alert End***

 **I hope you all like it and if you have any ideas you want to share with me please write a review about them :-) I promise I won't bite xD**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing**

 **And sad news: I am going to start university soon so my updates are probably going to take a lot longer now, but I will try to release at least one chapter a month ;D**


	6. Chapter 6

**And here we have chapter 6 of The Black Snowstorm :D**

"xxx" **talking**

" _Xxx"_ **Demon speech/memories**

' _xxx_ ' **thinking**

 _Xxx_ **Report**

 ***story start***

It had already been a bit more than three months since Kirito had first set foot into the supernatural world. At first he had a few problems, mainly that his body was still weak from his time in the hospital, no internet connection, very reduced napping time and something he at first really didn't expect to be a problem, he had no swords. Normally that wouldn't be strange, since who needs swords for school besides maybe when you were in a club, but it was different for Kirito. As the only non-monster in the school he had a severe disadvantage against all the other students, which he was able to compensate with his experience and reflexes, but those could only bring him so far.

But he hadn't thought about the last problem for some time. He hadn't gotten into any fights for some time, the spars and training with Inner-Moka were improving his instincts and reactions to a degree were he would have no problems facing off against weak and middle levelled monsters, but as he knew his luck the next opponent he would face would definitely not come from one of those two categories.

But he ignored that for now. His grades were good and he was just a few seconds away from the first holiday break in his new school. Winter break would be for two weeks and he was really looking forward to seeing his parents, his sister/cousin and his friends again.

But before he saw them he would be spending some time with the first friend he made in the Academy. She had somehow found out about his birthday, his main theory being that she broke into the headmaster's office to get the data, and had invited him to her home so that they could spent the first week of the holidays in her village. She had further elaborated her offer/present to him by saying that her home was perfect for skiing, snowboarding, hiking and everything else she could think of that was somehow related to mountains, snow or ice like ice skating.

Kirito needed just a few seconds to consider the offer, which could have had to do something with the embarrassed face and the nervousness in her voice she had had when she told him about it and after accepting he had told his other friends and family that he would come visit them in the second week, because he was invited by a friend to go skiing in the first.

"Kirito look, our bus has finally arrived!" He had never seen Mizore so bubbly, but why was that? She was probably just happy about seeing her parents again; he told himself and dismissed the thought.

Over the last month Mizore had come to a decision. She had had her doubts at first, but just after three months Kirito had wormed himself into her heart. She was pretty sure that what she felt for him was more than 'just' friendship.

She had realized that while watching him that he was probably perfect for her. He had a nice, laidback personality, they got along really well, her heart beat faster whenever she was near him since she had her moment of realisation and that he was really good looking, even though he said he looked too effeminate, was definitely not a point against him.

But with that also came some problems, namely she didn't know how she should tell him and if he felt the same for her. For all his greatness in personality, school and battle, he was way too obvious. Her subtle hints were ignored or disregarded and she didn't know if she had it in her to outright tell him and possibly get a rejection. She definitely not wanted to lose Kirito as a friend, but if he rejected her confession that was a definite possibility. And because of Kirito's obviousness she couldn't use her favourite modus operandi, namely observing so long until she was sure what actions towards him would cause what reaction.

Yuuki-Ona in general are a shy and observant race. It was pretty common to observe a potential friend for a few weeks before approaching him or her and it was common to take a lot longer for a potential marriage candidate. That she already considered Kirito as such spoke a lot for him and his personality and at the same time brought Mizore out of her comfort zone.

So she was pretty happy when he had accepted her birthday present for him. Oh who was she kidding, she had a grin on her face for the entire day and since she normally didn't show to many emotions all her friends, including Kirito had asked her what had happened to make her so happy. Now she was just a bus ride away from her home where she would spend an entire week alone with Kirito, had her mother to give her some pointers and since it would be just the two of them hopefully an opportunity to find out about his feelings for her and to make a confession once she had some sort of assurance that she wouldn't lose him as friend. And she had the entire week to spent time alone with him. Don't get her wrong, she liked her other friends too, but it had been some time since it was only the two of them and after saying their good-byes to their friends they got into the bus and started their journey to Mizore's home, which was thankfully a rather short affair, due to the interdimensional travel the bus or bus driver, it was the creepy one from his first day again, were able to do.

Once they got out Kirito looked at Mizore, a, in his opinion rather important question on his lips, as he froze up while looking at Mizore. He didn't know why, but in that one moment his brain just kinda stopped working and focused its entire capacity on one task: Taking in the beautiful girl next to him. He didn't know why or what caused it and even if he thought back to it again later on he still wouldn't know why, but in that moment, surrounded by unending whiteness, a slight wind blowing through her beautiful light purple hair he was somehow at peace and felt that nothing mattered anymore. He lost himself in her deep blue eyes with a light purple spark and –

\- and was broken out of this special, though unshared moment by a slightly concerned sounding Mizore.

"Kirito, is something wrong? You're spacing out again …" her voice trailed off and her cheek got very light red tint, since he was staring at her with an expression that she wasn't able to completely read. It practically radiated 'being at ease' so she wasn't concerned about it; maybe he was so taken in by the beauty of the snowy planes. Yeah, that probably was it, she herself was really happy about seeing the familiar mountains, forests and everything else again. _'Or he is taken in by your beauty.'_ A little voice in Mizore's head whispered to her, which prompted Mizore to increase the redness of her cheeks by around 300% and to turn her head away to not let him see her blushing.

Kirito, now broken out of his moment, himself turned a rather impressive shade of red, but after a few seconds, or were it minutes? Neither of them really knew, Kirito regained his speaking ability and was able to voice the question he wanted to ask her before he lost himself in her beautiful deep blue eyes _'stop it, she's your friend!',_ and was now finally able to voice it: "Ah yeah, don't worry, nothing's wrong, ähh where was I?... Ah right, Mizore, where exactly is your home, not that I don't appreciate the beauty of this area, but all I see is snow, is it hidden behind some kind of spell or something?"

Mizore, who had finally regained control of the amount of blood that was circulating through her cheeks raised her hand and pointed at the big mountain that was in front of them.

"My village is behind that mountain. It's surrounded by a mountain range and you were not too far off target, there is a spell placed around the village that prevents the village from being discovered through planes or something else from the sky."

"So we're gone go hiking up the mountain?"

"Yeah, it's just a few kilometres, don't worry, it will probably only take us around an hour to get there."

After an hour they had reached the top of the mountain and Kirito got his first look at Mizore's village and he had to give it to the Snow people, it was a gorgeous town. Kirito couldn't really describe it and he was sure whatever he may have said wouldn't have done justice to the piece of art he was seeing at the moment. Towers of ice connected with interloping railways also made entirely of ice the entire village was breath-taking.

Mizore was starting to get slightly worried, Kirito was staring into space again, the last time not even a full hour ago, but that was probably because of the view of her village. She had grown up in it and so it wasn't to breath-taking for her, but after being away for quite some time she too was a tiny bit marvelled at the beauty of the village.

But before she could say anything to Kirito he himself broke out of his spell and told her: "Mizore, your village is gorgeous, but I think you underestimated the way a bit, until we are down there another hour will be over-"

As he said that Mizore had activated her powers and crafted a set of skier's for both of them.

"- or not. Race me too the village?" You could say whatever you wanted about Kirito, but he was by nature competitive and racing down a mountain on skiers made out of ice, reaching obscene amounts of speed, there was no way he would miss out on that.

Cocking an eyebrow Mizore returned the smirk Kirito was giving her and accepted his challenge. "And you think you can beat me, a Youki-Onna in skiing?"

"If it wasn't a challenge it would be boring right?" He had gotten his skiers on and after giving her one last smirk he yelled out "LET'S GO!" and took off, Mizore mere centimetres behind him.

Kirito was in his element again, he hadn't been skiing too often up until now, but he also didn't mean that. The few times he was, he had been a natural at it and with being in his element he had meant the speed, adrenaline rush and the excitement he was feeling right now. Kirito loved speed, which was also the reason why he had chosen the sword in the game and had developed a built that mainly revolved around speed and strength and the reason why his bike was tuned to go a lot faster than normally possible or legal. In short, he was having the time of his life and going by the look Mizore was sporting she wasn't exactly unhappy either.

It took them no time at all to reach the half-way point of the mountain, when something changed. He didn't exactly know what was wrong, but his instincts were screaming at him that something was wrong and going by the fact that Mizore herself had too stopped and was looking around wearily it was probably not a mistake on his part.

And just the growl was heard from the forest that was right next to them he finally recognized why his instincts were screaming. Bloodlust. Unaltered, pure, raw bloodlust was coming from the forest and whatever gave it of was about to break through to them.

Mizore was frozen in shock. There was only one thing that could give of that bloodlust here, but it shouldn't be possible. They were on the side of the mountains that faced her village, hell they were only around half an hour by foot away from it. But still, there was only one being here that could give of that presence and just as she feared the first Yeti broke through the forest out in the open and going by the sound still coming from the forest, there were at least five more of them coming.

But that wasn't even their biggest problem. They not only came from their right but also from in front of them since the forest stretched around the mountain in a semi-circle and Yetis were very problematic for Yuuki-Onnas to fight against, since they somehow developed a natural resistance to their ice powers which meant that they shrugged of most of what she could shoot at them with their thick hides and it was a general rule in her village that if you found yourself in front of a Yeti your chance of winning was around 50/50 and seeking help from a ranger was the better option than fighting but it was still a possibility, the seven Yeti's that had come out of the forest were way too many for her so their only option left was running.

Which opened up another can of problems for her and because of that for Kirito. They couldn't go down and right because of the Yetis, they couldn't go up again, because they would be too slow and their only option, the left side, led to a part of the mountain that was rigged with ice caves and dangerous ravines, but the approaching monsters didn't really leave her a choice.

"Kirito, we have to go to the left side, it will be pretty dangerous, but my powers should help to keep us save from falling into one of the caves or ravines." He didn't look to happy, but nodded, knowing that he by himself had no chance against them as he was now and since Mizore chose the flight instead of fight option she herself probably too stood little chance against them.

So both of them turned to the left, speeding away from the seven monsters that were already getting a little close for comfort, Kirito following Mizore's trail and Mizore concentrating as hard as possible in the current situation on her powers to sense the potential death traps under the snow and finding a path that would lead them to safety.

They had gained a little distance to their followers again and Kirito was right next to her as she slowed down a little bit to explain to him what happened and what these monsters were when she noticed that she had made a gigantic mistake.

Because of the stress, speed, ingrained fear of the monsters and whatever other factor she had only scanned the ground around a depth of two metres. Until now that was enough since she sensed the ice at that depth and could identify the ravines and holes that way. But she had neglected the fact that ravines could have a thin layer of ice on them and at the moment both of them were right above at a seemingly gigantic ravine that had a layer of ice on it that was just thick enough to not alarm her senses, but still was way too thin to support both of them.

"Kirito!-" That was all she brought out before the layer of ice gave in and both of them fell into the darkness, Mizore and Kirito reaching out to the other and Mizore forming an ice shield around them.

-_-_-(Mizore's dream)-_-_-

" _Mummy, how can the snow priestess tell the future?" a little Mizore asked her mother after seeing the priestess for the first time in her young life._

" _Do you still remember the legend I told you about the two Ice demons Jack Frost and Serena Frost?"_

" _Yeah!" little Mizore was a bundle of energy and was hopping up and down while maintain her grip on mother's hand, "It was about the two demon siblings and how a third one forced both of them apart, making it so that only one was free and the other would be caged for ever, the free one not being able to find her, right?" Mizore's mother smiled at her child and replied to her._

" _That's right and the demon that was free gave our priestess her powers, which in turn have led our people to peace."_

" _But isn't scary to get powers from a demon?"_

" _Sometimes there are situations where you would even make a deal with the devil to save the ones close to you and as you saw today, the demon isn't doing anything bad to our priestess so you don't have to worry."_

" _I wonder what such a situation would be …"_

-_-_-(With Kirito in a pretty damn dark cave, ravine, whatever xD)-_-_-

Kirito looked around groggily, the fall had battered him up quite a bit and he had probably some broken bones, going by the fact that he couldn't move his left leg and right hand, but still, once he looked up and saw how deep he fell he was pretty happy to get away with just that.

After making sure that he was not about to bleed out he searched the ground for Mizore, she had probably taken the brunt of the fall with her powers and he had to make sure that she too was okay. That was not an easy task since there was little to no light coming from above, but after crawling around for fifteen minutes, walking was out of question for him, he finally found her and at the same moment wished he hadn't.

He was no expert, but she had both her legs and one arm broken, her stomach was bleeding and she had a pretty deep cut on her head and was only breathing shallowly. He didn't dare move her, it could make matters a lot worse if she had other injuries he hadn't seen yet, but there was not a lot he could do. Calling for help was impossible; climbing out too and all in all the only positive aspect the situation had was that the monsters were no longer following them. Which was in turn a moot point, since they would probably soon die down there if he didn't have a good idea pretty soon. His last option was to search for an exit, but even though he wasn't an enthusiastic geologist, he knew that ravines didn't have any exits.

While he contemplated what to do and did his best to ignore the pain he was starting to feel again, since the shock and adrenaline were wearing off his eyes had adapted to the darkness and he made out a faint blue glow in the darkness.

With nothing to lose and Mizore bleeding out on him he hoped for a miracle and moved to the glowing light.

Just before he could make out what gave of the glow he heard a voice:

" _Ohh, how long has it been since the last sentient presence was down here."_ It had an unearthly sound to it and Kirito answered the voice with as much cunning, preparation and finesse that he could muster at the moment and in his surprise: "Who are you?!" Yeah it wasn't much.

" _I am Serena and who might you and your dying friend over there be? It's not really nice to not introduce yourself."_ Kirito didn't know why but something about the voice or maybe the presence of the voice told him that he should definitely not get on said voices bad side, because it would and pretty bad for him and in following that Mizore.

"I'm Kirito and I was just about to visit my injured friend over there, when Yetis showed up and chased us into this ravine. I know it's a lot to ask for, but since you can even sense her condition, can you do something for my friend? Please, whatever you want for it name it and I will do it, but please if you can safe her." Kirito's voice was getting desperate and fragile while saying the last bit, he knew that he couldn't help Mizore any further with her wounds than he already had and getting outside help beside the strange voice was impossible.

" _I wonder … what should I do? I could help her, it would probably be rather easy for me, but you see, nothing is for free in this world and as I am now I'm unable to do more than just talking, so sorry, I'm unable to help your friend."_

Kirito knew that he was probably about to make a deal with the devil, but frankly he didn't care, SAO had ingrained a lot of things into his mind, like his fighting style with two swords, his reflexes and a lot more, but above all else it was the want, the need to protect his friends. He would go to hell, fight Satan and come back for them and if he had to make a deal with him instead of fighting, well his decision was made in an instant and was obvious.

"I don't know what you need, but whatever it may be, as long as you can save my friend I will do it."

" _Anything boy? Don't you think that's pretty dangerous to tell to me? I might just take you up on that."_

"Save her and name what you want to have done."

" _You know boy, I think I'm going to like you … So that means you are doing this of your own free will, right."_

That did not sound reassuring, but he had little choice in the matter now, so he stated in a resolute tone, without a doubt in his voice: "Yes."

" _Good, then come to me and poor some of your blood over the blue crystal that's glowing in front of you."_

Kirito got closer to the glow as fast as he could with his broken body and upon reaching the crystal, it was fist-sized and of a pure blue that kind of reminded him of Mizore's eyes, with smoke swirling inside of it, he did as the voice asked him too and held his right arm over it, blood trickling down on it from his wounds.

And with that agony began.

Kirito was falling and drifting at the same time, his being shrouded in ice and smoke, his senses in overdrive and still feeling nothing, beside the pain that his entire body was experiencing at the moment. It felt like someone broke down his body to as many parts as possible, threw those parts into a fire, then froze them with nitrogen, put them back together, only to start the process anew. Every nerve, every muscle, every part of his skin felt like it was being burned, frozen, broken and fixed at the same time.

Everything was pain and agony and Kirito would have probably gone crazy right there if there weren't two things that stopped him from doing so:

The first being two glowing eyes that looked with pity upon him.

And the second being the memory of the broken and battered Mizore who had risked her life to make sure that he survived the fall and was now waiting for him to survive whatever ordeal the voice had put upon him, so that she would heal her.

And the second one was the reason why he didn't embrace in the clutches of insanity that seemed so much more tempting and comfortable than retaining his sanity and living through the pain any longer.

It felt like years went by in his agony, when in truth it only lasted a few minutes. And after it was finally over his consciousness drifted into the farthest part of his mind to heal up again and left the reigns to his body in the hands of whatever new presence had entered his mind.

" _Truly, an impressive human, having his body remodelled and retaining his sanity, while being weakened from his wounds, not bad at all. Looks like I found myself something interesting! Now to complete the end of my deal."_

-_-_-(Snow village with Mizore's mother)-_-_-

Tsurara Shirayuki was getting worried. Her daughter should have been home with her potential marriage candidate two hours ago and she still hadn't her from them. According to the latest news from the rangers there was a group of Yetis out there that had ventured dangerously close to the village, but according to what she had heard they had vanished after being pursued into the forest.

This wouldn't normally be a cause for concern, but the rangers had had a meeting just two hours ago, which meant that during that time patrols were thinner than normal and it was a very real possibility that her daughter may have had a run in with the Yetis. Tsurara was normally the personification of being calm, as long as she wasn't being angered or irritated, but now she was about to completely lose her calmness over going into a slight panic about her only daughter when she spotted some movement in the corner of her vision.

She turned her head into the direction of the movement and spotted her daughter. But the immediate relief that she felt was soon destroyed and washed away by the realisation that her beloved daughter was in the arms of the dark haired stranger, unconscious and with blood all over her clothes.

Tsurara took off running to her girl and after two minutes that felt like hours for her she had reached the boy who was carrying her daughter and after he had handed her to her she finally took the time to take a look at him and what she saw made her gasp and she almost let Mizore fall out of her hands.

The boy had dark hair, just as her daughter had described him, but his eyes were not the onyx she had heard so much about, instead they were a deep, piercing blue that almost glowed and for the life of her, whatever he was, he was not a human as her daughter had told her, the presence he was radiating was more akin to that of the priestess if she had to compare it to something.

But that wasn't what had made her gasp, no, it was the rest of his body, he was bruised, bloody, his blue eyes were glazed over and to her horror she was able to see a bit of bone sticking out of his right hand.

She had no idea how he had been able to walk to the village and even more so by the fact that he had carried her daughter with his broke arm. Another thing that she noticed was that he had a smile on his face when he handed her her daughter and she could have sworn she had heard a voice whisper: " _My part is complete, hope you won't regret it boy!"_

With that his eyes closed and he fell down, unmoving laying in the snow, a little smile on his lips, even thought he was still in pain, even though he had retreated into the farthest part of his mind, he was still in great pain, from having his body broken, reformed and broken again while someone else was using it to escape the ravine and then fought the Yetis with it. He didn't notice the rangers that were carrying him and Mizore to the hospital, he didn't notice the commotion he caused and it would take quite some time until he would notice anything again, but that wasn't upsetting to him, neither was the pain, even though he registered nothing and before that he had registered almost nothing, he knew that the demon had kept its word and that Mizore was safe and that was enough for him to fill him with happiness.

 **AN.:**

 **Soooo sorry that it took so long, but I started University and god I have to say, I have almost no time for anything :(**

 **Which means that my updates are going to be slow and are probably going to be focused around holidays.**

 **As stated above, my time is short, so I didn't get to proofread this, if you notice a mistake, point it out and I will fix it with the next update :D**

 **Hope you all enjoy it and as always: Read & Favourite & Follow & Review**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7 of The Black Snowstorm :D**

"xxx" **talking**

" _Xxx"_ **Demon speech/memories**

' _xxx_ ' **thinking**

 _Xxx_ **Report**

 **Edit: 23.11.2015 The confession here was rushed and because of that I decided to change it. For further info read the AN below.**

 ***story start***

Darkness. Coldness. Loneliness. That was all he felt.

Loneliness

So much loneliness

He didn't know where he was, why he was there, when he even got there or when he was going to get back. Get back? That would mean he wasn't here from the beginning, but from where did he come?

And why was he feeling so unbelievable cold and alone in this never-ending darkness?

Both were no real surprise, since he was alone in the darkness and it was cold, but that wasn't what confused the poor boy in the abyss. What confused him was the intensity of those feelings. The loneliness he felt at the moment made the months spent grinding alone in SAO look like nothing and the cold, it felt like he would freeze any second, but his body didn't seem to be effected by it, only his mind.

And time went by for the poor heroic boy who was floating through the never-ending darkness, ever-wondering why he was there, where he was and why he felt such an intense loneliness. The cold had gotten better over time and its effect lessened to such a degree that he could ignore it now. It was still there, ever-present in his mind, but the intensity had lowered and he had endured through much worse than what he felt now from the cold.

He couldn't tell how long he had been in this abyss, but something changed. He didn't know what, but something had changed. He still felt the loneliness so that was not it. He could still feel the cold and the slight chill it gave him, but now it had a different sensation to it. The boy didn't know how to describe it exactly, but to him it was like up until now the cold came from the outside and was now coming from within him.

But even though that had indeed changed it was not what he was looking for. No, the fact that had determined for him that something had changed was that he seemed to recall something. He still didn't know what it was, but the longer he concentrated the clearer the memory became and the less he noticed the loneliness and the cold had all but vanished for the moment.

Whatever that memory was, the longer he thought about it the better he started to feel. The cold had been changed to a little warm feeling in his chest and the feeling of loneliness paled to what it had been at the start after waking up in this strange sphere of existence.

Finally the memory came into focus. There were some blurred colours on the outside, but the centre of the memory was becoming clearer and clearer by the second and he could already make out some fine details about it.

It showed a beautiful girl with light purple hair. He still couldn't discern who it was, but something inside of him just knew that she was important.

More details were becoming clear now. He could see her shining eyes, a Lollipop like the one Mizore always had in her mouth-

MIZORE!

Once his mind registered the name and his consciousness processed it he felt like lightning had struck him and closed his eyes while enduring the agony he felt in that moment. As fast as it had overcome, the pain vanished just a few seconds later.

But that wasn't the only change. The darkness vanished too. He was no longer floating, instead standing on a ground made of ice, ice that was without any impurity and with a perfect surface. The darkness beside him had given way to walls made out of ice, but contrary to the perfect mirror like surface of the ground it was littered with runes and pictures, detailing legends long lost and telling stories about a brother and a sister who despite tricking and pranking the snow-people helped them through their direst times thanks to their abilities.

This relationship between the two siblings and the Yuuki-Onas continued for a long time, until something happened, the boy couldn't exactly tell what it was, the part telling about this aspect of the story was damaged, but he recognised a new third figure, who –

" _Oh my, aren't you something? Returning from that after just two days, impressive, impressive, seems like I found myself something really interesting."_ The voice snickered, but before the confused boy could ask what she meant or who she was, he felt a jerk from his mind and the ice around him vanished and with it the strange voice.

-_-_-(in another sphere of existence)-_-_-

Tsurara was getting worried. Her daughter refused to leave the side of the boy and hadn't moved an inch since she had woken up. To Tsurara's relief Mizore had no real wounds beside a few scratches, even though all her clothes had been drenched in quite a bit of blood. When the boy had handed Mizore over to her, her heart had stopped for a few seconds and she probably lost some years of her live thanks to the shock she had had.

The boy was sadly in a way worse shape than Mizore had been. But his injuries were another mystery, at first she and the doctors weren't sure if he as a human could possible survive with all the wounds and mainly the blood loss, but after just one day he had looked like nothing had happened to him, which indicated that he was not a human, which was later proven to be true after they had ran him through some tests, startled as they were from his regenerative ability.

They didn't know what he was, but he was definitely not a human, but that was just another question she would have to ask Mizore once she finally calmed down enough or when the boy woke up, both scenarios seemed just as possible at the moment.

Mizore was the first. After she had finally calmed down and cried herself out, driven from guilt and fear about her friend and future husband, not even noticing that she didn't use potential anymore, she had told Tsurara about what had happened as far as she had witnessed it. The fact that Kirito was no human she had a really hard time believing since she had confirmed his humanity for herself, but once she looked him over again and concentrated on him she too had to realize that he no longer was the same species as before. His aura too had changed and had now a rather familiar feeling to it.

What she could tell her mother and in the same line, her mother a ranger, was rather little. All she remembered was that both of them were being chased by Yetis and that she had made a grave error on the left side of the hill with the ravines. After that it's just black and waking up in the hospital next to her mother and an unconscious Kirito.

She took hold of Kirito's right hand and held onto it as if he would vanish if she let go. "I'm sorry Kirito, if it wasn't for me you –…you wouldn't have gotten hurt and … and …" Mizore was crying again, sobbing and wailing, praying to whatever god that would listen to let Kirito wake up again. Even though he looked fine again, a doctor had carelessly let slip the fact, that Kirito could wake up in the next five minutes, the next five years or never again.

"and I'm sorry, but …I would probably still have invited you …to have a chance to be with you …", it was almost impossible for Tsurara to hear Mizore now, her voice had gotten lower and lower and she was still crying herself out again.

"… Kirito …" she let go of his arm and ever so gently moved it to his beautiful effeminate face, "I wasn't sure, but I think I … I love you. Please don't leave me." She had said it just as her hand touched his face and after she could no longer endure to look at him because of her fear and guilt she moved her hand back to his hand –

"… n't … ve." Mizore's entire being screeched to halt. She had raised her tear stained face so fast and turned it in the direction of Kirito's face again, that Tsurara feared for her daughter's neck for a second, only to hear the strained voice of her daughter's saviour and future husband.

"Don't worry Mizore … I won't leave." Kirito sounded exhausted and for a second Tsurara thought she had seen mist coming out of Kirito's mouth when he spoke, but before she could muse about this any further Mizore had flung herself onto the SAO-survivor and started to cry into his chest, while the boy continued stroking her head and muttering reassuring words into her ear. Tsurara couldn't exactly hear what he was telling her, but from the tone of voice alone, she knew enough that she should probably let the two alone for now.

She would later, during their way home, find out that Kirito hadn't heard a very important part about Mizore's confession.

-_-_-(Mizore's home)-_-_-

It had taken seven hours before Mizore had calmed down enough to be responsive again and for the doctor to clear both of them to go home with Tsurara. Now in human society it would have taken a lot longer with a lot more bureaucracy, but both Mizore and Kirito were physically already cleared before Kirito had woken up and after a few mental checks, for example if he had memory loss and so on, they were allowed to leave with Tsurara who had waited outside of the room to give the two of them some time alone and had only gone in again when the doctor came to perform the tests.

Now the three of them were sitting in the living room, an awkward silence in the air and nobody knew exactly how it should be broken.

Tsurara was still deciding if she should be ecstatic, her little girl had a soon-to-be-boyfriend who would love her and saved her life, or if she should be worrying about the fact that her little girl had been attacked by Yetis and had to spent quite some time in the hospital, not to forget that something strange must have happened to the boy next to her.

Mizore was still floating around cloud seven and was barely containing her happiness, she was basically in her own little perfect happy world and would definitely not be the one to break the silence, but who could it hold against her? Kirito, her had not only saved her life, no he had spent hours reassuring her in the hospital bed, get over her her guilt and he had obliterated all her fears about losing him, him hating her and so on and pointing out that he would have come even if he had known about the Yetis she was something akin to happiness incarnate. He still wasn't her boyfriend since he had only heard the last few words she had said to him, but it was getting clearer and clearer that he was the one for her and she still had quite some time before she had to make a final decision.

He even went so far as to say that he would have insisted on coming if he had known about the dangers, to make sure that she was save. No, Mizore was having one of the happiest moment of her live and if she had known a book series called Harry Potter and that the magic from there was real, she would have known exactly what happy memory she would have used for the Expecto Patronum and could have probably repelled an army of Dementors with it, but that's an entire different story.

Kirito himself was seriously contemplating to take a nap. He had learned one thing in school and that was, if everything got too much it was best to simply take a nap. And at the moment a lot of things were getting too much. He still had a heavy headache, not that he had told anyone, he didn't like spending time in the hospital and he wasn't too sure how Mizore would react to that information, it had taken him long enough to calm her down before and beside he definitely didn't want to pull her away from whatever happy place she was in now, she was practically radiating. And she looked so much better with that smile on her face than with any other expression and not to forget her beautiful shining pure blue eyes … _'Get a grip! She is your friend!'._ In the end he decided, that if Mizore could get lost in her own world, he could too and did just that, it wasn't really a nap but better than nothing.

Once Tsurara noticed Kirito's starring she allowed herself to smile at the two of them, her daughter Mizore had definitely chosen well and by the looks of it Mizore's feelings weren't one sided and given enough time they would probably blossom to something wonderful.

So they spent their time quietly in the living room, enjoying the relaxing and comfortable atmosphere until it was getting dark outside and Tsurara decided to stand up and bring the sandwiches from the kitchen which she had made a day ago. To her luck all of them still looked as good as new and once she tried one of them she decided that the taste too hadn't suffered from the effects of time and brought them in the living room, consequently snapping the two teenagers out of wherever their minds were and finally being able to ask a question she had on her mind, but before that introductions were in order.

"So, I'm assuming that you are Kazuto Kirigaya? Mizore has told me quite a bit about you."

After looking at her for a few seconds, his mind still not fully there, his face flushed and with a cough he introduced himself, "Yeah, I'm Kazuto, but if you want to you can just call me Kirito, like all my other friends."

"Well then Kirito, you have my sincerest thanks for saving my daughter, going so far as even risking your live." Tsurara said while bowing her head in gratitude.

Now Kirito had never really gotten used to accepting thanks, living as beater may have had something to do with that, so he defaulted to his standard response for such a situation, which was scratching the back of his head with his hand, putting up a slightly awkward smile and telling her that it was no problem and that he would do it again for any of his friends.

"I know this is a bit sudden, but can you tell me what exactly had happened after you and my daughter fell into the ravine? Mizore has already told me what had happened before that, but afterwards she remembers nothing." Tsurara wasn't too happy with herself for asking this question, but she needed to know what had happened to her daughter and maybe this would shed some light upon the mystery that surrounded Kirito's sudden change in species. "Ah, if it's too hard we could also discuss it later –"

"No, no, it's okay, well after we fell down the ravine both of us blacked out for some time and I regained my consciousness first. It took some time, but after I could think somewhat clearly I looked for Mizore and found her rather close to me. She had a few bad injuries and was bleeding pretty badly, which was because she used her powers to cushion our fall; otherwise we would have probably ended up with a lot worse injuries than just our broken bones and her bleedings." At this he smiled gratefully at his first supernatural friend, which caused her cheeks to light up a tiny degree.

"Broken bones? When the doctor looked Mizore over he said that she had been completely fine without any injuries whatsoever." Tsurara asked while Mizore adopted an unreadable facial expression, those news didn't sound good at all.

"I'm coming to that, well long story short and since I'm not remembering the entire thing, there was a strange light in the almost completely dark cave and once I went close to it, I started hearing a strange voice in my head." While Kirito told them about the strange voice who had introduced herself as Serena he never noticed that both Tsurara and Mizore were paling further and further the longer he kept describing the Serena.

Once he got to the point where he had accepted her price for saving Mizore both of them were as white as a sheet and Mizore was on the verge of crying again.

Oh god, what had she caused? No wonder he no longer felt human to her and now she also knew exactly why she had had that strange dream about the two demons. He had literally made a deal with the devil or better said demon and had agreed to do anything, anything! And he did it to save her, no, no, what had she done?! The demon could do whatever it wanted with him, all because she hadn't been careful enough. And he did it without a second thought and a smile on his face as far as she could tell. She should have never invited him here; she didn't deserve his friendship, much less his love, she-

"Mizore, are you okay? Your entire body is trembling." That brought her out of the downward spiral she was in and she finally noticed that Kirito had started to hug her, his hand rubbing her back gently and her mother too looked concerned about her and probably him, since she surely knew what exactly Kirito had done to save her.

"Kirito … I … I'm … I'm sorrrrryy *sob* Because of me you had too … had too …" Mizore was crying again, all the happiness from before gone, exchanged with the guilt she had felt before and it was back with more vigour than before.

"We already talked about this Mizore, you don't have to be sorry about it and as I told you in the hospital, if I had known before this would happen I would still have done it to save you, just as for any other of my friends."

Mizore was still crying and sobbing, "But you had to make a deal with … with …".

"It doesn't matter, you're safe, I'm still here and besides Serena didn't sound like someone who would take advantage of me." _'Well, maybe I'm bending the truth here a little, or maybe a lot, but Serena said I was interesting so she shouldn't do anything to awful to me… hopefully.'_ Kirito fully expected the universe to come and bite him in the ass for that thought, but at least Mizore was starting to calm down a bit.

"You know that she's a demon right?"

"Yeah, but she helped to safe you and brought us out of the ravine so she can't be too bad and besides I would do everything to save a friend, not to forget that the general consensus on monsters is that they are evil too and so far my experience with them was rather good." Mizore had calmed down again and even had to giggle a little bit at the end of his statement.

She remained quiet and just continued to enjoy his hug, feeling like nothing bad could happen to her, as long as she never let go.

"Kirito, I know I'm interrupting, but would you mind controlling your powers a bit more?" As soon as Tsurara's words had registered with him he took a look around the room and true to her words, everything was covered in a blanket of snow that was apparently caused by him.

"Are you sure you're alright Kirito?" Mizore reluctantly let go of the hug to be able to look into his eyes and to her unending shock she didn't look into his onyx eyes but into complete deep blue ones and as if that was not enough, she noticed that his hair had begun to turn from black to dark purple.

"Kiri.. Kirito, your eyes …" she trailed off again as she noticed something else that had changed, she had always liked the human warmth he was giving of, but now he felt colder. Still nice and warm to her touch, but compared to before it was still colder, like she was touching some of her own people.

This was a not well known fact about Yuuki-Onna, even though they were an ice race it took time until newly born had adapted to the cold and the ice powers. They couldn't control the power that was in their possession and needed to be kept from freezing to death through constant body contact, which was the only known method to prevent the babies from dying. It normally took a few months for them to get an unconscious feeling for their powers and control them to at least such a point that they wouldn't kill themselves with it, which normally wasn't a problem since they just had to be with their mothers constantly, but that method wouldn't exactly work for Kirito.

The problem was that Kirito had been turned from a human to a Yuuki-Onna by a demon, which had never happened before and he needed to learn to control his powers fast, because they didn't know what would happen if his demon ice powers went out of control and they were sure as hell that they didn't want to find out.

"It looks like Serena has turned you into one of us Kirito and I am sorry to say this, but you need to control your powers as soon as possible or they could go out of control and freeze you." Tsurara was not going to sit idly by when her daughter's potential mate was going to get himself killed. She and Mizore would have to train him and help him to get at least a basic control over his powers. Another problem was Mizore herself, she already blamed herself and this new revelation was doing a lot, but helping her was not one of those things. And she would have to tell the priestess about the boy and Tsurara really didn't know how that conversation would go.

"Kir-" Mizore started, but was interrupted by the mentioned person: "Don't worry Mizore, a pair of contact lenses and some hair dye and nobody is going to notice the difference. And besides, once I can control these powers I can finally start helping you and our friends to protect ourselves."

"That's not it, why aren't you angry? You should hate me … Because of me you almost died, you aren't even human anymore! I invite the first friend I made in school to my home to spend a little time with him and see where that brought you!" She was almost crying again when Kirito did something she hadn't expected. She had expected him to be angry, furious, a small part of her had hoped for another hug, but she had not expected him to sport a small melancholic smile and start saying:

"Don't worry, it's not the first time I did something reckless to save a friend, you could almost say that I'm an expert in that department." Now his smile got really sheepish, "Beside you risked your life too when you cushioned our fall and besides, what does it matter if I'm human or not? My personality is still the same and now thanks to these powers I'm finally able to help you girls out. And believe me when I say: For my friends I would gladly go to hell, fight everyone down there and come back if it was necessary for saving and protecting them."

The slight blush from before now returned in full force, even though it was a rather cheesy line, Kirito had said it with such a conviction and determination that she was ashamed to admit that she had wished that he had said her name instead of my friends.

She turned her head again too Kirito, she had turned it away a bit, once she had felt the blush coming and was already preparing to say something, when she noticed he had drifted off into Morpheus realm, exhausted from what had happened and the transformation his body was going through.

She herself felt quite sleepy and now looking at him, she snuggled herself closer to him and since somebody had to keep his body from freezing she let herself fall asleep next to him, providing Kirito with a very awkward situation the next morning, because once he woke up he would notice that Mizore had moved their bodies in a very compromising position in her sleep.

" _Looks like his transformation is almost complete, now it's finally going to be interesting again! Mwahahahah!"_ Serena was ecstatic, the boy had survived, had a personality she more than approved of and he would definitely help her get back at the one who had condemned her into that cage. And if not, well he still had to fulfil his half of the deal, so that wasn't a problem, but she would hold back for now, he first needed to learn how to control his powers and master them to such a degree that he could use them in a fight. And his body needed to recover from the ordeals he had gone through.

-_-_-(Somewhere in Asia)-_-_-

"What's wrong boss?"

"Nothing, just felt like a foreboding or something."

"You the great Miyabi Fujisaki can have something like that?"

"Oh be quiet Kiria, it was probably just a late reaction from my body to the last call we received from Gyokuro." He would later learn and come to regret that it was not a reaction to the phone call and that he didn't further investigate the foreboding he had gotten.

 **AN:**

 **Edit: 23.11.2015 Because it was rushed I edited the chapter into him not hearing the confession. The pairing will be the same, but I will try to make the confession better and less rushed, hope it works :D**

 **Tell me please if this is better**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing!**

 **!This is now an outdated AN since I edited this chapter!**

 **So guys, I didn't believe it myself, but I somehow found time (I just didn't want to study Physics) to write the next chapter. It took some time, but after around 1900 words it almost wrote itself alone.**

 **Please tell me how I did. This chapter feedback is especially important for me because it's the first time I wrote something romantic and love confessing. Tell me if I did rush it (Should I have waited longer?), if I did good or anything else you can think of.**

 **I hope you all like this chapter and for those who are still waiting for a classic Kirito badass fight, it should finally happen during the next two chapters. Hopefully xD**

 **I only proofread some parts of it since as I mentioned before, my time is sadly rather little :(**

 **AND A BIG ANNOUNCEMENT:**

 **As of this moment: This story has almost 100 Follows (98), 66 Favourites, is in three C2s, has 5320 views and has finally broken 40k words \\[*+*]/ \\[*+*]/ \\[*+*]/**


	8. Chapter 8

**Hello and welcome to another chapter of TBS :)**

 **IMPORTANT: I changed the last chapter! Whoever read it before the middle of November should reread it or the status of the relationship between Mizore and Kirito won't make any sense!**

 **I know it's been some time, but University (Chemistry especially) is taking up quite a bit of my time. For more details look at the bottom AN ;-)**

¨Xxx¨ … talking

' _Xxx'_ … thoughts

Xxx … normal

*story start*

Kirito wasn't sure if he should be happy about the current situation or not. The last two weeks, at least those days he still remembers, after leaving the hospital and reassuring Mizore that they were still good he had slept for another two days.

That was how long it took him to get his body's energy reserves back to a manageable level. After he had finally awoken he had been visited by the priestess and had gotten some information about his new inmate that started to reside in his body? Head? Soul? Kirito wasn't too sure and according to Jack, the demon possessing the priestess, Serena needed more time to accumulate herself with him, which meant she too couldn't tell it to them. He still hadn't heard anything from her, the name was supplied by Jack, but according to him it was now only a matter of days until she would make herself noticeable.

Kirito had to call his parents and told them that a blizzard had caught them by surprise and that he wasn't able to come home for the second week. He wasn't happy about lying to them, but it was his only option beside going home and turn his room into an Igloo since he had next to no control over his powers.

His friends and family were naturally not too happy about that, but after telling them that he would be back as soon as the next holidays started and that he was safe they were somewhat satisfied and he could end the call. The call to Argo was somehow different, after he had mentioned at which school he was now studying she had gotten strangely quiet for a moment, only to extract the promise from him that he would come visit her as soon as possible.

The entire second week of the holidays had been used to teach Kirito to control his new powers, which had worked not too bad, he now wasn't causing snow to fall wherever he went and he started to display the first positive results in actively using his new power. Mizore had explained to him that those powers depended a lot on imagination and at the last day, yesterday, he had finally been able to form something resembling a sword with his powers.

Another effect of his possession or merging or whatever, was that his body too had improved. Before he had finally been able to achieve a normal level, but now he was sure that his bodily strength resembled himself in SAO after floor 60 or something, which meant he was already stronger and faster than most if not all of humanity. Still nothing compared to the likes of Moka, but he was pretty sure Saizo would be no longer a problem if he decided to come back.

Mentioning Moka brought him back to his initial question of being happy or not. On one hand he had finally been reunited with his friends, school was starting again and neither Mizore nor himself had been killed after they had revealed to their friends, exactly what had happened. Though Inner would probably mop the floor with him in their next training session.

Yeah, that was what he had been doing until a few seconds ago. Kirito and Mizore had gotten out of the bus and had been greeted by their other friends, only for them to instantly find out that something about Kirito had changed. Once they had told them that Kirito now was a Yuuki-Oni, Kurumu and Inner Moka were seconds away from jumping Mizore, only to be stopped Kirito. Well he had stopped Kurumu, Inner wasn't to much of a problem since Moka still had her Rosario on, but the threatening through the Rosario was enough for them to know that it wouldn't have been pretty.

After they had been able to explain themselves in more details though neither of the two planned to go through with their threats.

¨So let me get that straight. You two were about to get into the village when the Yetis came out of the forest and you had to run away, with the only possible route being full of crevasses.¨ At their nod Yukari continued. You then fell into one and Mizore injured herself pretty badly and Kirito did something akin to making a deal with the devil to get both of you out of there and that turned him into a Yuuki-Oni.¨ Another nod from the two mentioned. ¨ And now he has the same powers as you and possible more, since a demon gave it to him and you are still at the very early stages of controlling it, right Kirito.¨

¨ Yeah, that about sums it up. But after thinking about it for a bit I have to say I actually got pretty lucky that day.¨ As soon as Kirito had said that the girls gave him looks that demanded an explanations and he could feel that they did not share his opinion on that matter.

¨ Well, first I got lucky by even surviving the fall and landing in the only cave with a demo inside it. Second reason why I got lucky is because it doesn't seem like I made a deal with a bad demon, at least according to what I have been told in the village and finally my new powers don't seem to have a negative effect on me and I will finally be able to help you out when the next monster decides that it must fight against us for whatever reason.¨ As soon as he had finished his last reason, he had a pretty angry Moka, Kurumu and Yukari in front of him, all three pointing fingers at him and just before they could make their displeasure known Mizore interrupted them, because she knew exactly what they were displeased about and had already talked it over with Kirito.

¨ You three don't have to worry, Kirito isn't having a stupid delusion about 'We are girls he has to protect us' he just means that he can finally contribute his own share. He had used that same reasoning with me when I had asked him why he wasn't angry with me about what happened and so far he is right, beside the fact that he isn't human anymore, everything else is positive. He can now finally protect himself, his personality is still the same and as you can see, so long as you didn't know he was human before and now felt his Yoki levels nobody is ever going to recognize something has happened.¨ That pacified her friends and brought a look of relieve on her friends face.

¨ Good, because we definitely won't be playing damsels in distress for you Kirito.¨ The slight smirk on Kurumu's face told him that he had survived and they could now finally return to school, if they hurried they would probably be able to reach class before the final bell.

-_-_-()-_-_-

The rest of the Semester progressed without incident and his spars with Moka were getting better and better. Moka was already using her full speed and only holding back in the strength department and even there it got less and less with each spar. His inhuman reflexes were one of the main reasons that allowed Moka to look forward to using her entire power against him sometime soon in the future.

His second semester too started out without incident and he was finally able to get a relatively good grip on his new powers. He could now form simple ice-swords, even though they were rather crude, and other simple ice manipulations were now possible too.

Thanks to the spars with Inner Moka and his daily control training with Mizore his swords may have still looked rather crude, but after testing it out before their routine spars they found out that his best sword could withstand three hits from Inner Moka without being shattered, which, considering that she was an S-class monster, was pretty impressive.

The only strange thing was that he still hadn't heard anything from Serena after all this time, but since he wasn't experiencing any strange or bad effects from his powers he didn't really need her at the moment.

And why should he risk the peaceful status quo? As he knew his luck that status wouldn't last anyway so why should he actively try to disrupt it? Not that he even knew how he would achieve anything like that.

But he had a feeling that the status quo would be destroyed pretty soon. Now most would be wondering why exactly Kirito had such a feeling, but that is rather easy to explain.

At the moment Kirito was standing in front of the school with his friends, Gin included, and were handing out their latest issue of their school newspaper.

That was a normal club activity and shouldn't have caused such a feeling for Kirito, but once again one had to look closer to understand it. Well not too close, a look at the front page of the paper would be enough.

 **Academy Public Safety Commission, a school protector or a mafia styled bullying club?**

That headline and the following three pages special was the result of what had happened a week ago, when they had handed out their newspaper like today and the APSC pay them a visit and demanded payment and the right to censor their paper.

Naturally that didn't go over too well with the girls and Kirito, though Gin had surprised them with his reaction, he didn't support them, to the shock of the girls he had wanted to comply with their demands!?

That course of action was down voted pretty quickly since Gin didn't provide any reason beside, you don't mess with the APSC and todays special issue was born.

While the girls reason for doing this was because they didn't like bullies or/and had previous experiences with them Kirito had another reason, that brought him back to a world full of mystery, monsters and bladed steel. To him the APSC felt like the guild the army, just with a more sinister spin to it, since the man on the top wasn't a good and nice person like Thinker, but instead a power hungry and as far as he could tell narcissist bigoted ass that needed to be taken down a few pegs.

They at first had thought it would take at least a month for their investigations to reveal enough for an article in their newspaper, but to their shock they had enough material just after three days. They saw them blackmailing, threatening and harming other students and clubs and from interviews with students they were able to get, after promising to not reveal their names, they had a very long list with the crimes of the APSC that was just short of proven murder, most had suspicions against them for missing students, but since they were more or less the justice system of the school and since Kuyou was a very strong fire based monster nobody was able to do anything against them.

Well, that was about to change, the article would undermine Kuyou's power base and discredit the APSC quite a lot.

And distributing the newspaper didn't prove to be a problem, they were gone faster than ever before, even if the APSC had wanted to confiscate their stock again, they wouldn't' have been able too since it was already gone and even if they were able to vanish the paper, the news were out and would travel from mouth to mouth, a schools rumor mill should never be underestimated.

Feeling great after accomplishing something like that the five friends and an unhappy Gin made their way to their classes, a bit worried about Kuyou's reaction, but certain that they would be able to overcome whatever he would plan to do to them.

-_-_-(Kuyou's den aka PASC HQ)-_-_-

¨Look at what those bastards dared to print in their rubbish!¨ Kaito was not a happy Spiderwoman. It had take her three hours to get a sample of todays paper and that irritated her to no end. Once she had read what was in the paper she had left the stage of irritated and was screaming bloody murder.

It had taken her three hours to get a newspaper because she hadn't expected for todays sample to be out that fast and she couldn't confiscate one either, because as soon as she was seen by a student the paper was already hidden away and the student who hid it was away most of the time too.

But then she had finally gotten one and was just seconds away from killing the student she had gotten I from. How dare they print something like that about them! Couldn't they see it? Without the PASC the school couldn't function and would descend into chaos in a matter of days. They enforced justice on the school body and puny little newspaper club had no right to question them! Oh she was going to destroy them, but now she had to tell Kuyou about this travesty and see justice handed out or better said, a club being burned to the ground.

Kuyou read the paper and if it hadn't been for the headmaster having a talk with him about the newspaper club to be left alone he would incinerated them here and now.

¨Calm down Kaito. I know what you want to do now and believe me I really want to enact justice upon seeing this, but the headmaster has told me yesterday that the newspaper club is to be left alone, which means that our hands are bound.¨ He could see Kaito was about to interject something in her apparent anger, but Kuyou had already thought of his options and had found an exploitable loophole, ¨But that just protects the newspaper club, if we can get them for something else we can do what we want, just like always. One of their friends, preferable that boy, vanishing for good in our dungeons should cower them enough to make sure that they never make another edition of their rubbish.¨

¨Why exactly the boy? Not that I care, but either of them should be fine to cower the group and enact justice.¨ Kaito's anger was mostly quelled thanks to the prospect of a new inmate to their dungeon, which would soon be there.

¨That's because of some of the rumors going around him being the one to defeat a troll called Saizo and as far as my investigation revealed is he the one who has gathered the friends, which means that blow would probably hurt a lot more for the girls and if we tell him we imprisoned his friends too, in other parts of the dungeon his imagination and despair will do us a wonderful job in starting to break him. When we are finished with him he won't even breath without our permission or be a pile of ash.¨ Kuyou's laughter could be heard in the entire HQ, even after a sadistically smiling Kaito had left his office.

The smiling was only partly because of what awaited the damnable newspaper club. When she had finally left the PASC club building again her face was an indifferent mask and she herself was a executive on a mission, a mission she had made a personal goal to fulfill.

Sadly that proved harder than she had thought. Not one of her targets had been alone when they left the school building and they hadn't broken even one school rule that she was able to think of. And that fact frustrated her quite a bit. Which was the reason why she was now in the dungeons. It was a long shot, but she didn't want to spend so much time on observing the five friends instead of torturing them and maybe one of the inmates new something interesting about them.

¨HEY YOU SORRY LOT! TODAYS YOUR LUCKY DAY! IF ONE OF YOU CAN GIVE ME SOMETHING GOOD ABOUT THE CURRENT NEWSPAPER CLUB I MIGHT BE WILLING TO LET YOU OUT!¨ Her voice was heard in the entire dungeon through the speakers and since a chance to get out was really, really rare she soon had five inmates in front of her who claimed to know something.

The first four were soon back in their cells with a few new wounds, beside made up things they knew nothing. The last one proofed to be the jackpot though.

Running into Kuyou's office again Kaito couldn't contain herself, it was just too good. ¨Kuyou, Sir. I think I just hit the Jackpot. After I wasn't able to see them doing anything that could be twisted into them breaking a rule I went into the dungeons and asked if someone knew something about their group. Four that came for made things up and I'm going to pay them a visit later for wasting my time, but the fifth one had the Jackpot.¨

Kuyou listened and he had to give it to her, this really was the Jackpot, with that he could even go over the headmaster's order and shut down the newspaper club permanently. Plans were made and tomorrow, a Friday was chosen to apprehend the suspect, which gave them a weekend to work him over and then come Monday he would hold a magnificent display of their power in front of the entire school.

-_-_-(Friday morning)-_-_-

Kirito didn't know why, but he had a bad feeling about today. The day started out normal and nothing special happened during their lessons but he just couldn't shake of the feeling of something terrible happening soon.

And to his dismay, he was proven right. They had just finished with their club meeting, when Kuyou, Kaito and ten others barged into their club room and to the shock of everyone started saying:

¨Kirigaya Kazuto, you are a suspect in a case we are currently on and need you to follow us for further questioning.¨

There was silence for a full five seconds, then Mizore exploded, cutting of her friends who were about to do the same. ¨ And what case is that? Did a blackmail not turn out as you wanted or has someone dared to fight back? And why should he come along with the twelve of you, knowing exactly how corrupt you are?!¨

That caused another silence. For the PASC because they never had garnered a response like that and for the friends because that response was both just a little bit out of character for their friend. But once you knew what Mizore knew, it didn't really sound out of character anymore. Mizore had investigated how the PASC operated and she knew that they would probably throw Kirito into the dungeon, never to be seen again and she would be damned if he let that happen to her best friend and if it came to a fight, then so be it, she and Kirito didn't train for nothing, not to mention Kirito's training with Moka.

Mizore would be damned before she gave up Kirito without a fight, true the cards were heavily staked against them, but she had gotten a lot closer to Kirito ever since the Yeti incident and he would do the same for her, hell he already did when he accepted the deal with the demon.

¨Ahhh, you are Mizore Shirayuki right?¨ Kuyou was way to relaxed for her liking and she was proven right when after her confirmation Kuyou produced a very official looking sheet of paper from one of his goons that in short stated that the two of them had to come with him or be expelled from school. It was fake, but Kuyou knew that they didn't know that and once the crime was confirmed nobody would bother him about little details.

They couldn't do anything against that and to their dismay had to follow them to the PASC club building into what they correctly identified as an interrogation room. That that room was next to Kuyou's and Kaito's office said a lot about the character of the two.

Inside the interrogation room was another person, one that they hadn't seen in quite some time.

¨What are you doing here?¨ Kirito was confused. He had recognized the student in an instant, but he didn't have the slightest idea why he would be here.

¨Getting the fuck out of here and getting back at you!¨ the student sneered in Kirito's and Mizore's direction.

Mizore was now officially confused. She had thought about a few reason for what the both of them could possibly be prosecuted, but not one of them had involved one of the guys that had bullied Yukari, back in their first semester. From his comment she could deduct that he probably knew something and his statement would be used against them, but for the world of her she didn't know what that could possibly be. A look to Kirito confirmed that he too hadn't the slightest idea what the PASC had planned for them.

When she had looked to Kirito and he had noticed her his confused expression was accompanied by shrugged shoulders that told her that he really hadn't the slightest idea what was going on. But she could read another thing from his eyes, which was mainly concern for her, here she might have gotten a slight blush, and quite a bit of anger about the entire situation.

And Mizore knew exactly where that anger was coming from. During the time he had stayed in the village the both of them had gotten closer and he had shared with her a few things about his live. It hadn't taken too long for her to understand exactly what had happened during the SAO crisis since she knew about it from the newspapers, but hearing what exactly was entailed by being forced to play it was an entire different matter. She had thought when she had first heard about it that it couldn't be too bad. Computer games and similar things were rare in her village, but she had once a human friend who had shown some to her before he had left her. From that bit she knew that you could beat every game with enough tries.

And there Kirito had told her something that the newspaper hadn't mentioned. They had only one try. And that had shocked her into silence, Kirito hadn't noticed and further told her about what happened. How he had left his first friend that he had made, his fights against both monsters and humans, how he got his beater title, at the end of the holidays he had even told her about Sachi and what he had done to stop the player killer guild LC. She in turn had him told about her first friend and what had happened once she had told him exactly what she was.

Both of them had cried and more than once cried themselves to sleep in the arms of the other, but they knew and could feel it, talking about what had happened in their lives had lifted a burden from both of their shoulders and had deepened their friendship a lot. And if everything went as Mizore would like it too, then that friendship would soon develop to something more.

After the fiasco with her first human friend she had researched humans quite a bit and knew now a lot more about human relationships compared to Yuuki-Onna ones. She didn't understand everything and getting accurate information was kind of difficult, but she knew that first she would have to be his girlfriend before she could marry him. Since she was a bit pressed for time because of what type of monster she was, Mizore had been waiting for a good opportunity to ask Kirito out. She would have preferred for Kirito doing the asking out, but she knew that he was slightly social awkward and had yet to be in a relationship, the fact that he had spent a lot of time gaming instead of socializing wasn't helping him either.

Because of that she had been waiting for a good opportunity, but there hadn't been one yet and somewhere in her mind she had to confess to herself, that she too was very nervous about it.

Before she could muse any further about initiating any relationships, she noticed that she hadn't noticed quite a bit. Namely that they had left the interrogation room with the ex-bully and where now in the dungeons. Identifying them wasn't too hard, since there were cells everywhere and the screams of protests about being here from the inmates weren't making it too difficult.

Kirito stepped a bit closer to her and whispered ¨what's wrong Mizore, you were kind of out it for a while?¨. To that Mizore had the decency to look a bit sheepish, she had to concentrate on getting out and not about getting into a relationship with Kirito, that could come later when both of them were a bit safer.

¨ Everything's alright, I was just thinking about something.¨ Before Kirito was able to comment on that Kuyou interrupted them.

¨Now that we are finally here it's time for you to receive your punishment. Anything you want to say before we administer it?¨

¨How about telling us why we are even here? As far as I know I haven't broken any rules since your lapdog started following us around.¨ Kaito was about to deliver an angry retort about that, but Kuyou interrupted her with his hand and pointed towards the ex-bully who had come with them.

¨Thanks to our dutiful student here it has come to our attention that you have broken one of the most important rules of this Academy and as far as we know your friend here helped you to conceal this transgression, which is also the reason why she is here with you.¨ Kuyou's smug grin was not reassuring in the slightest and was probably one of the reasons why Kirito had positioned himself in front of her and more important, at least for him, between his friend and the two main threats plus one inconsequent (the ex-inmate).

After they had entered the only room that hadn't bars as a door Kuyou continued with his speech, reveling in his momentary power over them. He will probably soon come to regret that thought.

¨This faithful student of this marvelous _Monster_ Academy has brought to the attention of the PASC that the most important rule was breached! Thankfully we know exactly how to deal with such a situation, even though it is the first time something so terrible has happened.¨

Kirito was only paying half of his attention to Kuyou. That half decided that he would have made a great actor and an even greater sleeping help or a politician. His ability to talk on and on without getting to the point and the flare for dramatics he was showing qualified him for all three jobs. The other half of his attention was battle ready. The ice swords were just a thought away from forming, the picture of them already firmly in his mind, he himself was positioned in such a way that he could see all three of his enemies and Mizore was behind him to provide range support.

Those tactical aspects of their positions was lost to Kaito. She enjoyed the feeling of power over others too much to pay attention to something like that and even if she had, she would have probably called Mizore a coward for hiding behind her friend, never wasting a thought about tactical positions in such a situation.

¨This individual -¨ Kuyou was interrupted by the mentioned student.

¨Sir my name is-¨ and that's as far as he got.

¨Doesn't matter! And if you dare to interrupt me again you can say goodbye to getting out of here!¨ Kuyou snarled at him. ¨So where was I before this untimely interruption? Ah right, your crime! You low life have dared to wander into our proud school under my MY careful watch and thought that I wouldn't find out that you were a human!¨ That was one of Kuyou's favorites moments, when he shattered the hope of a convict and realization hits them. Their expressions were great and made his day sooooo much better.

.

.

.

Beside the fact that it didn't happen?! Both of them looked relieved? The boy even dared to smirk at him!

¨So this entire affair was completely unnecessary. As you can see,¨ Kirito used that moment to transform his hands into ice claws,¨ I am just as much a monster as Mizore here beside me. It would probably be better if you used more reliable sources of information.¨ The smirk on Kirito's face was gigantic now. For once fate had played right into his hands. The same accusations before the winter break would have caused quite some problems, but now they were baseless and false and he was pretty sure that the next newspaper issue would contain something about this 'interrogation'.

Mizore too was happy now and sported her own smirk. That was a positive aspect of Kirito's demon possession she hadn't even thought about.

¨THAT CAN'T BE! YOU WERE HUMAN! I SMELLED IT, THERE IS NO WAY THAT I WAS WRONG!¨ the Tanuki, whose name still hadn't come up, screamed at them in panic, fear clear in his face, the emotion competing with his anger and shock.

Kirito was about to present him with a great and witty comeback when he suddenly burst into flames.

¨Now that is quite a problem…¨ the way Kuyou said that reassured Kirito not in the slightest and the fact that he just casually killed another student had earned him a place very high up on Kirito's shit list.

-_-_-(Newspaper club HQ)-_-_-

¨ And that is why I told you to let the PASC alone! They are corrupt and powerful, why didn't you listen to me?¨ Gin was not happy.

¨Because it's the right thing to do and because I AM definitely not going to cower before some self announced leader of justice who bullies and blackmails others!¨ ¨ Exactly!¨ Kurumu and Yukari did not share Gin's view on the matter. Not at all.

¨Let's go Yukari, if our big bad wolf is to afraid of them we two are going to have to rescue our friends alone.¨ With that Kurumu and Yukari left the room, on their way to help their friends.

.

.

.

¨ I know that this is a stupid idea and I shouldn't do this … Oh fuck it! Hey Kurumu, Yukari WAIT FOR ME!¨

-_-_-(Infirmary)-_-_-

¨Prepare some beds, I have a feeling that a certain young black male is going to visit us soon and he is probably going to bring some students with him."

¨ Yes doctor.¨

 **AN:**

 **First and foremost sorry about the cliffhanger and how long it took me to get this out, but as I wrote at the start, Uni is taking up a lot of my time.**

 **I hope you like it and the next chapter is going to be the first big battle for Kirito with swords (YES FINALLY!) and his friends**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing**

 **Please review, I read every one of them and they are quite a big motivator for me to write :D And please tell me if the part about the Kirito Mizore relationship is now better than before ^.^**

 **And I think I screwed up the canon plot, if I am not wrong the Witch hill was before the PASC or not? Well doesn't matter, it's AU and my story so screw the original time line *evil laughter***

 **PS.: I will soon start introducing SAO Characters for all those who asked ;)**

 **Until next time ;-)**


	9. Chapter 9

**Hello and welcome to another chapter of TBS :)**

 **I AM ALIVE (*hides from angry masses screaming at me about where I was*)**

 **I know it's been some time, but University (Chemistry especially) is still taking up quite a bit of my time and I got caught up in a few other fandoms. For more details look at the bottom AN ;-)**

"Xxx" … talking

' _Xxx'_ … thoughts

Xxx … normal

*story start*

"Now that is quite a problem …" Kirito did not like what he was hearing. After he had learned about the reasons why Kuyou had wanted to arrest them he had been relieved and was pretty sure that Kuyou had just placed another nail in his coffin because of his rash actions, but those words were spoken in a tone and way that didn't sit well with him at all. That was not a tone that suggested that his plans had been fouled, he didn't even seem annoyed that his plan was ruined, no he seemed, well it's hard to describe, but smug would probably fit? And by observing Kuyou's body language Kirito knew he was making himself ready for an attack, which would be completely unjustified, but his plan was probably to burn them to ashes like the tanuki and then spin some grand tale about how he had tried to reason with the two newspaper-club members, but it didn't work and what not.

All those thoughts came and went through Kirito's brain in less than a second, he was used to making plans, observations and connecting dots in such a short amount of time. Hell if it couldn't do that then he would have probably never survived SAO with his style of playing. As a solo player on floor 50+ you either had that ability or you would fall to an attack of a monster, because you had nobody to compensate for you.

Kuyou was still oblivious to the fact that Kirito was already ready for an attack and that Mizore too was readying herself thanks to a few signs Kirito had given her behind his back, which she thankfully was able to comprehend and continued where he had left off „… but I have a great solution for it." His smirk reached almost diabolic levels, „I just have to kill you two and nobody will be able to tell if you were human or not. I had planned to make your death a public execution, but alas we can't have everything and with your end it will be easy to shatter the remnants of the newspaper-club and bring back order and justice to Yokai Academy! So with that said …"

Kuyou was gathering Yoki into his right palm, probably to produce another fire and attack them with it, but before he could even fully form his attack he noticed that Kirito was in front of him ' _Huh, how did he get over here so fast? And are these swor-'_ and cut him with a vicious double slash across his chest.

Kirito officially loved stereo villain typed opponents. He had no idea why they thought that he would silently wait and do nothing while they delivered their smug 'Fear me' or 'Bow before me' speech, but he didn't really care. The main point was that they left themselves with a gigantic opening and Kirito was happy to exploit it. Back in SAO the enemy NPCs too would monologue on and on about their evil plans, but back then they were save because of their Immortal Object status until their monologue ended, which the real life enemy sadly for Kuyou didn't have. Kirito didn't believe that this attack won him the fight, but it would definitely make it a lot easier.

And Mizore too hadn't been slouching off. Kaito was so stunned by seeing her leader getting carved open that she froze for a few seconds and Mizore wasn't going to waste such an opportunity. They had threatened her and her Kirito and they were going to pay for it. While Kuyou's blood was still flying in the air from Kirito's slash attack, Mizore had formed three ice cycles and shot them at Kaito, transforming her hands into claws at the same time to be ready for a possible close quarters fight against her.

Which she didn't get, because Kaito for all her superior behavior didn't even react until she was pierced by the ice attack and with three hits on her body, spread over her left leg, her stomach and her right shoulder she was already out of the fight before it even really began. She would probably survive the injuries, but that would only be possible if she got no further hits on her body and even if Kirito and Mizore wouldn't go after her, there was a pretty good chance that a stray fire or ice attack would hit her. Summarized: she was in an absolutely shitty position were either friend or foe could end her and the fight hadn't even really started yet.

While Kaito tried her best to crawl away from the epicenter of the fight, Kuyou was coming to terms with the fact that his opponent was able to draw blood against him and even worse, it wasn't some last ditch attack at the end of a fight, no, it was the opening of it and for the first time in a long while it was not Kuyou who drew first blood or in his case landed the first attack and incinerated his foe.

"How dare you attack me like this!" Kuyou all but screamed and made ready to launch a fire enhanced fist at Kirito. For wounding his body like this he would make the boy in front of him suffer and if he couldn't get him to suffer then he at least wanted to feel as his fist impacted the body, turning it to ash as his fires burned through him. But it never came to that, while Kirito was rather easily able to dodge the, he had to concede that to him, fast and probably deadly punch, he hadn't needed to bother with it, because just as Kuyou was halfway through the motions of his attack Mizore's fist introduced itself to Kuyou's face from the side.

Kuyou had in his rage at being hit completely ignored that his subordinate had been defeated and consequently was not prepared for a second enemy to join his fight. No, he had been solely concentrated on Kirito to make sure he couldn't land a second surprise attack and forgot completely about Mizore.

Sadly for the two ice monsters Kuyou was a rather strong monster, which meant that the slash, the rattled brain and the broken nose would be inconvenient for him, but he was still far away from a knock-out.

After delivering the punch and hearing the satisfying crack of Kuyou's nose, Mizore found herself back at Kirito's side, ready to defend or attack with him.

"Nice punch Mizore, maybe you even managed to knock some sense into that damn asshole, and nice work with the other one." Kirito said to Mizore, all the while never turning his eyes away from Kuyou, searching for an opening or a sign for a future attack as his mouth went upwards into a smirk.

"No problem, but Kaito was way to stunned from you showing Kuyou that your powers were the genuine article, as to even react to me." And here she herself allowed a little smirk to appear on her lips. The second week at her home during the holidays and all the training the two of them had done since the incident with the Yetis had really paid of, before that she would have probably been too slow or to out of it from Kuyou's declaration to utilize the opening she had gotten from her opponent.

Now she wasn't that much stronger, but she used the strength she had a lot better and her awareness for openings and weaknesses the enemies showed her had increased.

And that edge was probably the only reason that she reacted fast enough to jump backwards and evade the flame wall that went up where she was standing seconds ago. Kirito too was able to evade the attack, but the grim look on his face told her that the fight was far from over and probably got one hell of a lot harder.

When the flames vanished she also understood why Kirito showed that expression. Kuyou had reverted back into his monster? form. At least she believed that it was his monster form, since he definitely changed, but the strange thing was that he was still shrouded in flames so that only a rough form of him was visible, and that form looked still pretty human.

Once the flames died down a bit further she recognized that his form wasn't human at all. Starting from his legs, up to his torso it looked like he consisted of flames and his chest and face were now showing tribal style markings. Sprouting from his head were also two flame fox ears which now made identifying him pretty easy, though it didn't help them in the slightest.

Kuyou was a Yukou, a spirit fox, one of the strongest Yokai that existed. And Mizore was feeling that power now. The temperature around them steadily increased and the Yoki he was pouring out would have sent a middle class monster into coma, if they were to try and do the same for longer than a few scant seconds.

Mizore froze on the spot, some part of her brain was trying to tell her to move, to attack or flee, but the sheer aura and KI Kuyou was projecting had her frozen up.

Kirito didn't suffer from the same problem, he was almost used to monsters that were stronger than him. The gap he felt when he compared his strength to Kuyou now after he had transformed was new, but he didn't freeze up and his brain did what it did best in such a situation: It searched with 95% capacity a solution to his problem, which at the moment was survival and used the last 5% for a witty sentence to smack into his foes face.

"Whoever gave you your name must have been a hell of a lot creative when he chose Kuyou, you could almost call that a good anagram for Yukou!" …yeah, Kirito's 5% weren't too witty, but it at least broke Mizore out of her frozen state, which he could tell by her snort about his line and the gaping afterwards that he could say something like that in face of such a monster. He would probably get an earful for that later.

Kuyou himself was stupefied for a few scant seconds and than his rage practically tripled and he roared at the two: "I SHOW YOU MY FINAL FORM AND YOU DARE TO MOCK ME?! YOU, YOU PUNNY LITTLE WASTE OF BREATH?! I COULD EASELY SQUASH YOU! LOOK AT YOURSELF! JUST BEING NEAR ME AND THE NATURAL INCREASE IN TEMPERATURE THAT COMES WITH THIS FORM IS ENOUGH TO END YOU TWO **AND YOU STILL DARE TO MOCK ME!?"** Not only his rage increased, it seamed like that with his anger, the temperature too increased and was slowly becoming a problem for the two Yuuki-Onna/-Oni.

"Maybe that was not the best choice of action" Mizore whisper/deadpanned at Kirito who slightly nodded his head as answer, still searching for a way out of this and deciding that he would hold the longest nap of his life after he survived this fight.

-_-_-(With the rescue committee[better known as rest of the Newspaper Club])-_-_-

"I knew this was a stupid idea!"

"Oh shut up Gin, you didn't have too come with us and are still free to go if you're that afraid." Kurumu answered with only a slight bit of annoyance, since she too had felt the massive wave of Yoki that came from their rescue target area.

"As if I could let you go on alone after I felt that." Gin grumpily replied, but all of them knew that he would not turn around now, after they had come so far.

Just another turn and if Gin had been correct, they would be in front of Kuyou's special dungeon where he normally took his 'suspects with special personal interest' and he was sure that Kirito qualified as that.

"Okay girls, careful now, the few PASC members we took out on our way, are nothing compared to Kuyou. He should be around that corner, so be careful. Don't want to lose any more members to him." Gin had muttered the last part, but Kurumu had still heard him and frowned quite a bit at that.

After a second to collect himself Gin rounded the corner and was immediately pushed back again by a wave of hot air that told him two things: They were at the right place and Kirito, _'Yes it was definitely Kirito and not Mizore'_ Gin absently thought, had managed to make Kuyou angry enough for him to change into his true form.

Gin and the three girls with him rounded the corner a second time and were all thinking about how the hell they were supposed to land an attack, not even thinking about defeating, the monster in front of them, that had his back turned to them, but was radiating such high levels of heat that even coming near him seemed pretty impossible at the moment.

Just before Gin could compare the pros and cons of a suicide attack the temperature in the room dropped from one second to the other to freezing levels and he heard a voice that sent a shiver down his spine and convinced him and the others to hide behind the corner and evaluate their situation by listening in about what was happening.

-_-_-(A few minutes before Gin contemplates a kamikaze attack)-_-_-

Kirito was despairing a tinny, tinny bit right about now. He had managed, after producing an ultra-cold sword and with Mizore using the last of her strength as distraction to wound Kuyou a third time, but compared to the first two hits from him and Mizore it was really nothing more then a scratch to Kuyou and all three of them knew it. All his other attacks had been meaningless because they melted before he got even close enough with one of his normal ice swords or spears.

Kuyou had yet to land a hit, but that was only a matter of time now and again, all three of them knew it. The heat was sucking their energy and strength away and most of their attacks melted away well before they came anywhere near Kuyou. The only reason that they were still in the fight was probably that Kuyou didn't want to destroy his HQ and didn't use any wide area attacks that the two of them wouldn't have been able to evade.

And the exhaustion showed at the worst moment, when Mizore was too slow to evade the next superheated fireball that Kuyou had thrown at her.

She didn't even have the strength left for a last ditch effort such as an ice wall to try and block it. Her perception of the world slowed, as thought as to prolong whatever time she had left before it all ended with the element that was the complete opposite to her own.

Thanks to that slow motion move, she could clearly see the different shades the fire had, the flicker of it, how it grew bigger and bigger as it got nearer and nearer and how ever so slowly another body placed itself between her and the oncoming death.

Mizore's brain at first couldn't comprehend what had happened, hell it couldn't even comprehend how it was still able to work at the moment, but after that one second of complete stop to all thought processes it started to work again.

' _Kirito'_

' _Kirito'_

' _Kirito!'_ He had thrown himself in front of her to block the attack that was meant to end her. He had sacrificed himself for her again. First he made a deal with a devil to save her and now again he saved her without a thought about what could happen to him.

Again, she had lost her friend. Again, she had lost her love interest. Again, she was alone.

She almost got catatonic. She didn't care that Kuyou was spouting about how he had wanted to kill Kirito last to see the suffering on his face that now showed on hers, she didn't care that she had almost no strength left, she didn't care that she was crawling to Kirito who was so badly burned and still radiated heat. She didn't care that, because she was crawling on the floor that just got set on fire, her legs got burned.

All that mattered was that she was able to reach Kirito. To tell him that she had wanted to be his girlfriend, that she had almost worked up the courage to ask him, that she had hoped to marry him after school if the girlfriend thing worked out. To be able to hold his hand for one last time and to tell him that she was sorry for not being strong enough.

Kuyou looked at her with disgust. He had wanted to see the boy as broken as the girl now was. He had just lost his revenge. With distaste he sent another fireball at the clearly unresponsive girl and turned to walk away.

Mizore didn't care about the fact that another Fireball was coming her way. She didn't give a response to it in the slightest. But still, the Fireball, bringer of a painful end never reached the distraught and despaired Yuuki-Onna. It was stopped by an ice spear that appeared in its path from the ground. Again Mizore didn't notice that, but she notice that Kirito was moving again. First she could feel movement in the hand she had grabbed. Then she felt a shudder move through Kirito's entire body. And then to her unbelieving eyes, Kirito, her Kirito began to stand up again. As he did so, his body started to emit a cold, white mist and the temperature dropped several degrees and continued falling until it had reached freezing levels.

Mizore's body welcomed the climate change, but her consciousness was completely fixed on Kirito who now stood in front of her, again between her and Kuyou, but now he seemed like a completely different person. Not to mention the Yoki that he had started to emit, which now could easily rival the amount Kuyou was giving out.

Another change was his hair, which was now snow-white and gave of a slight glow. She was so transfixed on his, in her opinion, beautiful snowy hair and the fact that he had miraculously healed that it took her a few seconds until she noticed his eyes.

His mesmerizing beautiful onyx eyes, where she could so easily lose herself in were completely devoid of any color. He looked at her with those midnight black eyes and after a few seconds he placed a hand on her head and began to speak in a voice that was not his own and sounded demonic and feminine? "Don't worry child, I just healed the worst of his and your injuries."

After saying that and Mizore noticing that almost all of her wounds and pains were gone Kirito? turned around and faced Kuyou, who after the first drop in temperature had turned around again and was frozen on the spot. Never before had he felt like this. Never before had he frozen up in front of someone. But now, now his instincts were screaming at him to run. Not that he listened to them, he was the apex of the Yokai species, the strongest, the mightiest, he was justice incarnate and therefore it was impossible for him to be defeated, so why should he run?

The fact that it was now freezing cold and that that meant Kirito? was completely suppressing Kuyou's powers never entered his mind, too shocked was he when he first heard the voice of his victim to be and felt the gulf that was between his powers and the powers the boy in front of him was emitting.

" **You little fire fox dared to awaken ME FROM MY SLUMBER?! You unworthy little thing dared to think that you could defeat and extinguish my container!? After all the work I did to synch him with me and make him inhabitable?!"**

Kuyou could not utter a sound as he stared at the monster in front of him, that now so clearly outclassed him.

" **You thought you could take from me my way to freedom and the one that freed me?! I THINK NOT! When you reach hell or wherever you might land, TELL THEM SERENA SENDS HER REGARDS!"** and with the last word Kuyou finally noticed the mist that now shrouded most of him and seemed to be sucking out any warmth he had left in his body. He tried to move away, tried to generate a fire to disperse the mist, tried to shout, but he could do nothing. He had lost to much power and energy to the mist already and as the last sounds from Serena registered in his brain he could also feel himself draw his last breath.

Mizore watched in wonder as Kuyou collapsed and stopped moving altogether after the mist from Serena, she now finally remembered that Kirito had a tenant, had reached and enshrouded him while she was talking to him.

The next thing Mizore knew Kirito too collapsed. Before he could connect with the floor Mizore somehow managed to catch him. She had never even noticed that she stood up or reached him/her with her arms, to her it was just, one moment he/she was offing Kuyou and the next he/she was in her arms.

" **Thank you child, that one attack took a lot more out of me than I would have liked, if that pompous fox hadn't been scared shitless and instead moved out of the way, he could have given even me some problems, since I'm still only at around half my normal power levels and can't even use more then that because I'm still not synched completely with your Kirito here. It will probably take some time before he wakes up again after this ordeal. Now I have to run damage management of his body, so it falls to you and your four friends around the corner to get me and Kirito out of here alive. Take good care of him, it would be a shame if all my hard work would have been for naught."** And with that Kirito went limp in her arms and she finally discovered her other friends that Serena had pointed out for her, who were now hurrying over to help.

-_-_-(Infirmary)-_-_-

"And I distinctly remember telling him to be more careful." The doctor said with a sight after Mizore and the others had managed to bring Kirito into the infirmary and placed him on a bed. Mizore wasn't sure if the doctor was scolding her Kirito or if he was just mumbling to himself, at least his body language didn't indicate that he was annoyed. Probably …

"Well, we did try to evade danger, but it seems to have a knack in finding Kirito. –" Mizore wanted to continue, but the doctor interrupted her: "Don't worry, I'm not angry, if the school didn't have students like him what would I be doing with my time? Be that as it may, your friend is actually in pretty good shape. His injuries, whatever they were have healed and as far as my knowledge of the snow people goes, indicates that his readings are okay too." He moved his finger over a few points on a sheet that seemed to appear from thin air, because Mizore, and she was pretty sure her friends too, never saw the doctor getting it.

"And since those readings are okay, the only problem he has is his abysmal low Yoki level. Whatever he did burned almost completely through his reserves and it will probably take until the end of school in two weeks until he wakes up again. He will probably be up and about by the time your club instructor wants to take you all to the human world to scout out the location known as witch hill."

That startled Moka, "How do you know about that? Professor Shizuka told me about that only this morning and I still wasn't able to tell the others about it."

Instead of answering her his mouth formed into a Cheshire smile and Moka decided that she didn't want to know about the ways the doctor got to know about it.

"So I have other patients to look after and he" pointing a finger at Kirito, "just needs time to rest and isn't in danger, which means you lot have until closing hours to be with him. Goodbye."

The group gave their own goodbyes as answer and acquired some chairs that were standing in the vicinity and seated themselves next to the sleeping Kirito. It was first Mizore who told them what had happened to Kirito and her and afterwards Moka and Kurumu told them how they came after them to help, defeating Kuyou's thugs on their way and how they felt the cold once Serena made herself known.

They were able to finish their respective stories just as the closing hour began.

-_-_-(two weeks later)-_-_-

Mizore was well and truly excited. According to the doctor Kirito should wake up today and as far as he was able to tell her Kirito should be in pretty much perfect health, maybe a bit sore, but nothing that would hinder his participation on the club trip that was planned for tomorrow.

And she was really looking forward to that trip. Over the two weeks without Kirito her resolve had hardened and she was now surer than ever before; she wanted Kirito. She had missed him a lot during the last two weeks, even though she spent a lot of her free time with him in the infirmary when school was over for the day or in the mornings before it started.

But now it was finally time. He had slept a bit longer than the first prognosis had been, but he should be up and about in the next few hours. Her other friends weren't with her, but would join her later since she was skipping class at the moment.

She had feared that the doctor would send her away, but he had just looked at her, gave one wistful smile and had ignored her since. But back to her first thoughts. Starting tomorrow she would have finally the chance to develop her relationship with Kirito. She was sure, that during their trip she would definitely get the chance to ask him out and if she timed it right, it could even happen beneath the stars under the black night with the moon as their witness.

Yes, today would definitely be a good, no, a great day. She would finally be able to talk to Kirito again and it would also mark the start of their relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend, even if she would ask him a bit later.

While she sat there she also remembered what she did beside visiting Kirito in his bed in the infirmary. She had continued her training and since she wanted something to distract her, she had been ceaselessly about it. Her control over her ice had improved, as well as her stamina, strength and reflexes.

And as she thought about that, she would have almost missed the moment when someone finally returned to the land of the living. But the twitching of his hand let her react just fast enough to turn her head and look into his still closed eyes, until they finally, almost painfully slow, opened and as she again lost herself in his beautiful eyes, she saw his mouth starting to part and heard his first words in over two weeks.

"Mizore"

"Kirito" she got out while happy tears streamed down her face.

 **AN:**

 **Yeaaaah, hello again, been quite some time, huh. But I finally have this chapter so please tell me what your thoughts are about it. I hope it is still up to snuff and that I didn't completely fuck up the fighting scene, but it was pretty hard to write. Short as it was, I gave may best and hope you enjoyed it. A reason why it was rather short is because of the elemental advantages (Fire vs Ice) which pretty effectively neutralized Kirito's sword skills.**

 **I hope to have another chapter out in the next 2-3 weeks and I will also be working on another chapter for Swords and Scythes, though I will probably only post that one once I have written some more for that fic.**

 **About the things that I read on FF that took up quite a bit of my free time that I still have after studying: that was mainly the Harry Potter fandom, with stories that had either a dark and evil Dumbles, Luna as a main Character or where Harry was adopted into the Black family or got together with a Black OC that is a child from either Sirius or Bellatrix (Whoever likes HP fics and still hasn't read Delenda Est or Trouble should really change that !)**

 **I also devoured quite a few Naruto fics with either Haku or Fuù as a main Character ^.^**

 **As I write this last line I am enjoying my holidays in Italy and hope that you all are enjoying yourselves too (maybe even thanks to this new chapter) and that the shitty Wlan here is enough to upload this chapter**

 **P.S.: After someone pointed it out: Kirito is a Yuuki-Oni and I changed that in the previous chapter**


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